Luke

Good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here, and I'm very excited for the series. I hope that you guys had a good Thanksgiving. For the Rectors, it's a whirlwind. It's six and a half hours to Atlanta on Monday, five hours to Dothan on Wednesday, six hours to Greenville on Friday, and four and a half hours to Raleigh on Saturday, which is 22 hours of travel. So if you see my children and they look a little bit addled, that's why. But they did great and we had a great time and we saw family and I hope that you did too. But now that we're past that, we have arrived at my favorite time of year at Grace. I love this time of year at grace i i love uh getting to celebrate next week uh as mikey said is uh christmas sweater sunday so i hope you'll bring out your best um i've seen some of yours before and i know they're pretty good so maybe you've upgraded but i hope that we'll all have a good sweater to wear for next week my favorite sunday of the year is fami jammy sunday We'll be like them. Which is more pointedly Amo La Civita every year. I'm looking at you, pal. Let's put something on this year, buddy. But I love this season. I love the Christmas series. I love how fun it is. And for me, obviously, we're celebrating Christmas. We're celebrating what that is. We're celebrating the arrival of Christ. But I also, in my head, as I kind of celebrate the end of the year, I celebrate what God has done at Grace. I celebrate who you are and who we are and God's presence here. I celebrate the people who are committed to this place and who love it so much, and all that God has done. So I think it's a perfect time of year to kind of not only celebrate Christmas and what that means and the arrival of Christ, but to also reflect on what God has done in our church and in our church family and look forward to what He's going to do in the future. To that end, we've got a meeting on December the 14th, immediately following the service to update everybody on the building, where we're at, and exactly what it's going to take to get us where we believe we need to go. And I think we're a lot closer than people suspect. So I'm optimistic for that meeting and I'm hopeful that you'll make it a priority to be there. I also know that that's on the same Sunday that we're doing the kids caroling. So there's going to be grandparents and stuff like that here. So to the young families, I would encourage you maybe bring two cars that day and one party can stay behind and attend the meeting and then the rest can go out to eat with grandma and grandpa and then you can can catch up later, because let's be honest, that lunch is overrated, and you probably just want to be here. Anyways. This series, here we go, is it, was, Wassailing, here we go, Wassailing. As Aaron mentioned, it was either Aaron or Mikey, I don't pay much attention. A few years ago, either last fall or fall before last, we did a series called The Songs We Sing. And we looked at the songs that we sing as a church, some of the hymns and praise choruses that we do, and we found them in the Bible. And we said, let's kind of imbue them with more meaning by looking at these songs. And it's a Christmas series that I've always wanted to do. And so this year we're going to do that. We're going to look at a Christmas carol each week and look at how it's imbued with meaning through scripture. We're going to climax this on Christmas Eve, looking at the greatest song that's ever been written, in my opinion, Oh Holy Night. And so I'm very excited to do that, but we've got some good songs along the way. And we have a song that we're focused on this morning that if you were paying attention to the video, you already know what it is. Or if you've looked through the notes to try to see what the fill in the blanks are, you already know what it is. But I'm not going to tell you yet if you haven't done either of those things. The first thing I'm going to do is make the opening point. This is the least expected opening point that I'm going to put on the screen in the history of Grace Raleigh, okay? A few weeks ago, I had a point that said something like, faith is like a Brazilian steakhouse. And Carly, who I send the notes to, who puts them on the bulletin, emailed me back and she said, I can't wait to see what this is about. And then I sent her this week's notes and she said, I never thought you would top Brazilian steakhouse, but I'm about to. Here's the first point of the sermon. Be like Keith Cathcart. Yeah. Where's Keith? Hey, buddy. Don't let him go, Keck. Be like Keith Cathcart. Here's my second point. Sort of. Okay. Now that we're clear. Now listen, before I just dump on him for the rest of the sermon, let's be clear. Keith is a really good friend of mine. I love Keith. I have a policy in my house. I do not pay money to a handyman of any kind until I've gotten permission from Keith. When there is something wrong in my house, I call him and I say, I think I need to call somebody to come fix this. And he will often say to me, if you call somebody to fix that, I will not be your friend anymore. I cannot respect you as a man. Keith has stood on the safe confines of my deck while I was up on my roof with FaceTiming him, showing him some flashing underneath some shingles and he helped me repair it. And we did, we fixed the leak. Did we not? Yeah, we did. So he's a good buddy. He's also the greatest evangelist I've ever met in my life. And this is true. Keith evangelizes like no one I've ever met. He espouses his beliefs more zealously and more effectively than any Christian I've ever known. The problem is he's an evangelist for the Steelers, not Jesus. Although I'm sure he does evangelize for Jesus from time to time. He's an incredibly effective evangelist for the Steelers. As a matter of fact, to prove it to you, I texted him earlier in the week. And I said, hey, I'm not going to tell you why. I just need you to text me pictures of people you've converted to Steelers fans. I just need three or four pictures. Dude sent me 20. 20 pictures. And he said, this is just the beginning. He got so excited about it. He's going down to Mexico to celebrate Christmas, to do a Christmas celebration with our ministry partners there. And he printed up terrible towels that say Feliz Navidad. And he's going to hand them out to 200 children and get them to wave them at once. And he told me it's going to be the greatest moment of my life. Just so you don't think I'm making this up, I wanted to share with you some of the people that Keith has evangelized for the Steelers. So let's take a look, Lynn. This is a young man at our church. He did not grow up in Pittsburgh. He does not care about the Steelers, but now he does. His mom made the mistake of going to Mexico with Keith and the rest of the team. They didn't just go to Mexico together, let's be clear. Sorry, Miel. There was like a whole group of people. They all went together. That's funny. He converted him. This is Patrick. Patrick did not, he's wearing, I don't know, Patrick, are you in the service this morning? Yeah, there he is. He's wearing that jersey. I didn't even tell him to. He didn't even know that this was happening. He's caught the virus, okay? Keith gave him that jersey. He's so proud of himself. Look at that dumb grin on Keith's face. Look at him. He's evangelizing for the Steelers. What's the next one? Is this Chucky? Oh, no. This is a guy. This is a random dude from Home Depot. That's who that is. That is Casey. Casey. Thank you, Keck. Keck is also in Steelers gear. Did you purchase that gear, Keck? Or did Keith? He puts on his hat. Yes, that's a random guy from Home Depot that is now a Steelers fan because of Keith. Who's the next one? Chucky. Chucky is the foreman in Mexico. Now this, I'll give Keith some credit as much as it pains me. Keith has been going to Mexico for darn near 20 years. And he met Chucky when Chucky was in seventh grade and was a volunteer working to get a home for his family. And he has gone through the years and he is now the foreman of the work crews for Faith Ministry, the ministry with which we partner. Every year, Keith goes down and he spends time with Chucky. And every year, he gives Chucky more Steelers crap. He has gotten birth announcements, wedding announcements, engagement announcements. That is like a surrogate son to Keith, and that's a very special person to us here at Grace. So I don't want to make light of it, but also, look at that. He's got all kinds of Steeler stuff. Can I tell you this? He even got me. Here I am. I went, too. I figured if I was gonna be in Pittsburgh, I needed to look the part, so I shaved down to a mustache, which I would say looks awesome. And here's the worst part. Do we have it, Aaron? He got my children. He got them too. But do you know what I did with those towels? Last time we had the hootenanny and we had the grill, the Blackstone needs a towel to clean up the grease I use those just so we know all right that's enough of that Keith is the most effective evangelist I've ever met in my life he loves the Steelers he wants everyone else to love the Steelers and he and it's a point of pride and joy when other people love his team too. And it's harmless and it's fun. But he, as I was thinking about the song this morning, he embodies this song better than anyone I've ever met, which is this, Go Tell It on the Mountain. We know this Christmas carol. Go tell it on the mountain. Go proclaim it. Here's the chorus of the carol. Let's look at it together. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. I love this carol. I thought it was the right place to begin the series. I don't know how you guys do it in your house, but at our house, after Halloween, the first weekend after Halloween, we decorate for Christmas. I know that's crazy. I know. But here's what Jen and I say. There's nothing wrong with a little extra Christmas in the house. We love our living room with lights and a tree and the ambiance. And during the year, we got our TV up on the mantle, you know, like you're supposed to do in 2025. And then bracketing the TV, we have these potted plants that are fake that have like different like plumes coming out of them like you're supposed to. But at Christmas, they're reindeers, and it's cooler. And then instead of just this naked mantle, there's garland with lights on it. And so it's just festive. And then we turn on the gas fire that emits zero heat whatsoever. And it's more cozy in there. So in our house, we decorate for Christmas the first weekend after Halloween and the first school day after Halloween we get in the car and Lily will say, Daddy, can we listen to Christmas carols now? And we do. On the way to school we listen to Christmas carols. We've got a playlist. We've added to it over the years. She has her favorites. I have mine. If you haven't listened to Barbara Streisand's version of Jingle Bells, it's the best in the whole wide world and I love it. I highly recommend. But one of my favorite songs that we listen to in the car together is Go Tell It on the Mountain. It's fun. It's festive. It's energetic. And it really gets across the point of the season. This idea of go be an evangelist. Here's what Keith does for the Steelers. As he goes and he tells it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Everywhere he goes, he's going to tell you about the Steelers. He's going to give you a terrible towel. He's going to give you a jersey that you don't want, that your children are going to wear, and now your host. But he's going to go and he's going to tell. And that's what this song is about. Go tell it on the mountain. Go tell people about Jesus. And this is a fundamental part of our faith that we don't talk about often enough. I'll be the first person to admit that I'm bad at evangelism. I don't do it as often as I should. And before I get into the sermon too far, making a crude analogy that's clumsy, it's far easier to evangelize for your team than it is to evangelize for your Savior. Because there's not a bunch of social emotional baggage wrapped up in your team. Keith doesn't go tell people that they should root for the Steelers and then get the response, I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but the fans of the Steelers are hypocrites and they hurt me. I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but I have existential reasons to believe that the Steelers don't exist. I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but I have this and this and this reason why I just can't do that anymore. You tell someone to root for the Steelers, and they're like, no, I like the Falcons, and you're like, I'm so sorry for you and your life, but I understand. But you tell someone to convert to your Savior, and it becomes a lot more complicated and a lot more deep. And so it's a clumsy comparison. And the point of the story isn't to guilt Keith into sharing Jesus with the same zeal that he shares the Steelers. Although, Keith, maybe. But it's a clumsy comparison if you want to make it one-to-one. Nevertheless, evangelism and going and telling it on the mountain is a fundamental part of what it is to be a Christian. And here's how I know that this is true. I don't know if you've ever thought about the disciples in this way, but I have a cousin. I was just with him over his cousin-in-law, actually. He's an OBGYN, and he had to go through a ton of school to get to practice as a doctor. And the last part of school that you do when you're pursuing the medical field is residency. You go and you follow actual doctors who are licensed. And you that's what the disciples were doing. The disciples were in residency with Jesus. They were being trained by him. They were being prepared for ministry. And this is not the point of the sermon, but just by way of thought exercise, I doubt that you've ever considered, why didn't Jesus, if what Jesus came to do is come and live a perfect life and die a perfect death, why didn't he die on the cross when he was 21? Why didn't he die when he was 18? Why didn't he die when he was 30? Why didn't he just come down here, live a sinless life, die a perfect death, and be our perfect sacrifice, which is what we believe that he was and is? I'll tell you why. Because he wanted to spend the last years of his life training young men in residency to take over the church. To do what he did. And so that's what the disciples were doing. They were in residency learning how to lead what would be known as the church. Because the church didn't exist as an idea before Jesus implanted it into the minds and the practices of the disciples. And when he left, he said, now go and spread the good news to the corners of the earth, to all the nations. Go to the ends of the earth and tell them who I am, baptizing people in my name. Go make disciples in Jerusalem and Judea and all of the ends of the earth. The reason that Jesus didn't just live and die was to train the disciples. You understand? And fundamental to that training was evangelism. It was so fundamental that 30 years after the death of Christ, when Mark and Luke, and Mark wrote the gospel on behalf of Peter, and Luke wrote the gospel to, oh, blessed Theophilus, to explain to this man named Theophilus what was going on, and then to explain to humans for the rest of time what was going on. It was so important to them that they included this story in Mark chapter 6 and in Luke chapter 9. Two of the disciples thought that this part of their training was so important that it needed to be recounted. In Mark chapter 6 and Luke chapter 9, you can look it up if you want to. I'm not going to read the verses. Jesus sent out the disciples two by two. He said, go in pairs, go into the surrounding towns, cast out demons and heal, and tell them the good news of the gospel. Tell them who I am. Tell them what I've done. Tell them what I'm going to do. And we often, those of us who know our Bible, associate that with the end of the story, which is if they don't receive you, shake the dust of that town off of your sandals as you go, which is to say, like, I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore and go. And we like that because that way, if evangelism doesn't work, we don't have to feel bad and whatever. But the point of that story, the point of that recounting, the reason that it's included in the gospels, the reason that Peter and Mark and Luke felt compelled to include that in their narrative and in their recounting of their experience with the Messiah is to say the point is we were told to go and tell other people about Jesus. We were told to go and evangelize. And so it is unavoidable that part of our Christian experience is to tell people about the Jesus that we love. Now listen, I want to be really clear here. If you're new to the faith, if you're questioning the faith, if you're here kicking the tires to see if faith is for you, I'm not preaching to you this morning. This is not for you. I don't want you to feel an ounce of responsibility for the things that I'm about to say. I just would invite you to soak it in and know that this is what we're about. But if you're a Christian, if you're not kicking the tires, if God is your Father and Jesus is your Savior, if you believe that Jesus is who he says he is, did what he said he did, and is going to do what he says he's going to do, then this is for you. And this should compel us. A fundamental part of your life, of your faith, is evangelism. Is to tell people about your Jesus. And I know that this makes us deeply uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. It's an uncomfortable conversation. But that does not negate the fact that it is a biblical imperative, that it was a course requirement for the residency of the disciples, and it is an expectation that Jesus himself places on you to go tell it on the mountain, to go tell it everywhere, to go tell people about the Jesus that you love. And in our culture and in our context, go tell people why you still love him. Go tell people why you stayed in church and they left. Go tell people why you've come back to church after wandering for a while. Go tell people what Jesus has done for you. Go tell people about the sense of peace that he's given you. Christians, go tell people about the sense of worth that he's given your soul. Christians, go tell people about the purpose that he's given you in the waning years of your life. I know many of us are at the point of our life where we're thinking, we're not thinking about a cruel, we're thinking about legacy. What do we leave behind? Go tell people what you want to leave behind and why. Go tell people what you want to build in your building years and why. If you're young, go tell people what you want to do with your life. And why? Go tell people how you want to raise your kids and what you want them to do. And why? Go tell people about your Jesus and why you're sticking with it and why you're still doing it and why you still have faith and why you still bother to get up on a Sunday morning and to do your makeup and to do your hair and to tuck in your shirt and to blouse your sweatshirt, which is something I just learned this morning. Go tell people why you bother to do that instead of sleep in. And don't just keep it to yourself as this personal private thing that's my business and not their business and I don't want to offend anyone. No. Go tell it. Go tell people what Jesus has done for you. If you serve in the community, tell people why you do. If you're kind to someone at the office that other people are not kind to, tell people why you're kind to them. If you pray for your grandchildren, tell people what you hope for your grandchildren and what you pray for them. I think in 2025, this idea of evangelism, it used to be when I was growing up in the 80s, evangelism was like, go tell people the good news. Go tell people about this Jesus. They may have never heard of him before. He forgives their sins. And he omits their shame. He erases it. And he's conquered sin and death so that we don't have to be afraid of him. So that we don't have to be afraid of it. Go tell them the good news. Go tell them that Jesus exists. And it was this idea that you could sit down with a person and be like, let me tell you about the person in this Bible that the whole Bible is about. It's about Jesus. Let me tell you about him and how he erases all of your guilt and shame for all of your life and accepts you for who you are and makes a passage into heaven for you for eternity. And then the idea was that they would hear that and be like, my gosh, I've never heard that before. That's incredible news. I'd like to be a Christian. Is that true now? The people in your life that you know who either don't believe in Jesus or are not actively engaged in faith, they have a reason. They have a reason. And it's a good one. I don't know what it is, but it's a good reason. The people that you know in your life who are atheists, when I was coming up, do you know what I was taught? Atheists are dumb. And if you'll just do a couple easy arguments with them, you'll win, and they'll convert immediately. Have you guys found that to be true? The atheists in your life probably, some of them are dumb, just like some of you are dumb. But most of them are pretty smart. And some of you are pretty smart. Begrudgingly. Evangelism is different in 2025. But I think an interesting way to engage the conversation is to say, here's why I'm still doing what I'm doing. Here's why I'm still here. Serving my God, praising my Jesus, worshiping my Lord. And I think that's an interesting place to start the conversation. But the larger point is, we can't get around the fact that evangelism is an essential part of Christian life. And I bring that up because Christmas is the perfect time to go tell it. Christmas is the perfect time to go tell it. Our whole world rallies around this holiday, right? Our whole world commercializes this holiday. This is when all the holiday stuff starts. This is when they start telling you to buy presents. This is when Lexus every year comes out with the most ridiculous ad campaign I've ever seen with a red bow on a $75,000 SUV as a Christmas present. Listen, I've often said I don't believe in reincarnation, but if it's true, I want to come back as a member of a family that gives away Lexuses at Christmas. And if any of you are giving Lexuses as Christmas gifts, consider the building campaign. It could help. Our whole culture rallies around this holiday. We commercialize it and we make it about gifts and all the things and family and decorations and lights and we celebrate. But Christians, we hold the truth of it. I am not going to say that Jesus is the reason for this season. I will not preach that. Although he is. We hold the truth of what this season is about. It's about Jesus. It's about his arrival. When I preach on Christmas Eve, it's going to be the phrase, long lay the world in sin and error pining until he appeared and the soul felt its worth. Oh, that's the most compelling line ever written. That's what Christmas is about. It gives us a sense of worth and purpose and hope and joy. And we know that better than anyone around us who doesn't love Jesus and who isn't spiritually engaged. So Christmas is the easiest and best time of year to go tell it. And let me tell you an easy way, the easiest possible way to go tell it and to evangelize your friends. This is going to sound self-serving, but I'm going to explain it. The easiest, I can't think of an easier invite than a Christmas Eve service. Can you? How easy is it? I've got some friends. I'm not setting myself up as moral exemplar. I'm a terrible evangelist. But one thing I have done in my life is Lily was a part of a soccer team for years. My daughter Lily, she's nine. She'll be 10 in January, which is nuts. And I coach. I have a soccer background and I coach. And I got to be friends with the coach and her husband, Heidi and Trey, and their daughters, Josie and Hannah. And Lily decided to quit. And I was like, I like this community. I'm going to keep coaching. And I'm also convicted that I asked you guys to volunteer. This is an organization that runs on volunteers. And so you guys give up an extra day to volunteer here. And I get paid to be here. And I don't volunteer anywhere else. So I thought maybe I should practice what I preach and volunteer somewhere. So I coach. So I kept going. And people are like, you're just a creepy guy coaching nine-year-old girls, and your daughter's not on the team. I'm like, yeah, it's cool. Don't worry about it. But I volunteered, and I enjoy that relationship with them. And there's another coach on the team, a guy named Vishal, who's from Pakistan. And I enjoy him too. And I've developed a relationship with him such that I told him when I get back from Thanksgiving, he actually said, let's get drinks or let's get wings or something like that. And so I'm going to go out and spend some time with what we call Coach V. And I was actually in the lead up to this, I realized I need to invite Heidi and Trey to the Christmas Eve service. And here's why this is such an easy invite. They're people of faith, but they don't go to a church. It's marginal for them. But they probably want to celebrate Christmas Eve somewhere with their family. There's a chance they want to go to church somewhere. So why not just invite them to Grace? And it's actually funny, we've joked about them coming to Grace and they said, we kind of like you being our friend and not our pastor. And I'm like, I kind of like you being my friend and not someone who comes to my church. It's nice. But I bet you have people in your life where it would be a really easy invite to just say, hey, I don't know if you're going to celebrate Christmas Eve anywhere. I don't know if you're part of a church right now, but you can come to my church. And at that service, can we show them that we take our Jesus very seriously and we don't take ourselves very seriously at all? Can we model for them what church can be? Can we show them who our Jesus is? Can we use that service to go and tell it? And now here, this is very important to me. I'm not preaching this sermon to get you to invite people to Christmas Eve, okay? I don't care, and I don't think you understand how true this is. I don't care how many people come to the Christmas Eve service. I'm gonna have a good Christmas with my family either way. I'm not trying to get butts in seats I never have. I've never, ever, and some of you know you've been here for all eight years, stood up here and tried to compel you to invite people to grace for the sake of grace. I've never done that. And I never will. But it does occur to me, invite them to Summit's Christmas Eve service if you think I'm full of it. I don't care. Go to a Christmas Eve service with your neighbors. That's not the point here. I'm not trying to fill up our services. But what I am presenting to you is the easiest of opportunities. Is it easier to invite your neighbor, your coworker, a family on your kid's ball team, an associate, whatever? Is it easier to go, hey, I don't know if you wanted to celebrate Christmas Eve in a church but if you do come to mine it's gonna be pretty okay and here's how I know it's gonna be pretty okay the sermons like 12 minutes that day and then it's all songs all right so we know we're in good hands Aaron's got it is it easier to invite them to that or in March? Hey, do you want to come to church with me on Sunday? Yikes. That's a tougher one. I hope you will. I'm just saying, I'm just acknowledging what we all know. So it's never been easier to go tell it than it is this Christmas season. So I hope that you'll consider that as a way to kind of open the door to conversation with some people that you care about. And I hope that maybe you'll leave her thinking about who can I invite to the Christmas Eve service. And again, if you think this is remotely self-serving, take them to Summit. I couldn't care less. I would, I would, listen, I would rather you invite people to Summit's Christmas Eve service and go with them and let them experience church there than I would you come by yourself having never invited anyone. Okay? But if you want to bring them here and let us show them what it's like to worship Jesus together and celebrate who he is, what a wonderful introduction into church. There's never been an easier time or season to go tell it. Now, I don't just want us to go tell it this season. I want us to continue to do it. So three very quick ways because I just realized it's 1056 and I'm going to move very quickly through these. Three very easy ways to be an evangelist. Okay? First, this sounds cheesy but it's true. Wear it. Wear it. Keith, did you wear a hat this morning? Yeah. What is it? Nah. Keck, you, listen, you don't have to spend more than 15 minutes with Keith to know that he's a Steelers fan. All right? Huh? Always. Always. That's right. It's on his car. If you go to his house, it's all over his dumb basement. Well, I don't even think he has a dumb basement anymore. He has like an apartment because he's building a house. But it's all over his stupid apartment. It's on his clothes. It's where he wears it. You go to his office, it's all over the place. It's everywhere. If you experience Keith, you experience the Steelers. And it reminds me of this verse in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 14, that says, We are led in triumphal procession by Christ, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of God. I love that verse because it's this idea that passively from us wafts this knowledge of God passively from, from Keith, unfortunately wafts this love of the Steelers. You just, it just is infectious. He just does. And what if we love Jesus in such a way? What if we wore it? And this is, this is so funny. I wrote this point before I knew I'd be wearing a gray sweatshirt that we're currently selling this morning. We're not commercializing this. I'm not making any money off of it. Actually, I get 5% of every sweatshirt. So please. Wear your gray stuff to the gym. Wear it to the soccer field. Put it in your office. So that when people come in your office, they know this person loves Jesus. Put it in your home. Put verses on your walls so that when they come over to your house, when your neighbors come over, they know passively this person loves Jesus. This family loves Jesus. This home is oriented around Jesus. Make it so that wherever people go in your life, when they encounter you, whether it's in your car with what you're listening to, with what you're wearing to different things, and I'm not actually saying that you should wear a grace logo every day to work. That would be ridiculous. But I think you get my point. Put it out there that if you know me, you know I love my Jesus. Regardless of church, wear it. Make it visible so that people passively know who you are allied to. Second is live it. Live it. In Matthew 5, 16, we find one of the most challenging verses in Scripture which which says, Let your light shine before men so that they might see your good works and so glorify your Father who is in heaven. This is more than passive. This is if someone were to follow you through your day, just by seeing you move in and out of conversation and people, they would see that you are so different, that you are so other, that you are so holy, that they would want to know more about you and glorify your Father who is in heaven. If you want to be an evangelist, spread the good news of Jesus and what he's done for you. Live that out. Be kind to the cashier. Be patient in traffic. Be considerate of the co-worker that no one else likes. Be even-handed in your dealings. Have character in your deals. Be honest in your negotiations. Do not backstab your co-workers. Be forthright even when it's hard. Tell the truth even when it's inconvenient. Be loving to your spouse even when they're being a jerk. And they deserve to be clapped back at. You can talk to Jen about how to do that if you need some examples. Do not yell unnecessarily at your children. Do not lose your temper. Be people of a meek countenance and kind such that others see your good work and so glorify your Father who is in heaven. Live it out. The last way we evangelize is to love it. Do you know why Keith tells everyone about the Steelers? Because he loves the Steelers. And when you love them, it brings him joy. It's a maniacal, twisted joy that's harming to humanity. Nevertheless, it's what compels him. And here's what I would say to you as a challenge. If you find yourself convicted because you're not someone who evangelizes for your Jesus, maybe, maybe it's a love issue. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to soften it. Maybe if you found yourself loving him more, you would tell other people about him more. I know the reason that my buddy tells people about the team he loves is because he loves them so much that it brings him joy when you love them too. And if we don't love Jesus so much that it brings us joy to see other people begin to love him too, then maybe we don't love him enough. And if we want to be evangelists, instead of looking out, what we need to do is look in and ask the Father to cultivate a love for him and what he's done in our hearts, so much so that we are so compelled to go and tell it. So I'm going to invite up Aaron and pray. And we're going to sing Go Tell It on the mountain together. And we're going to mean it. Yeah? Let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for Keith, I guess. Thank you for a Jesus who loves us so well, loves us so much. I pray that we would be so compelled by that love that we would go and tell other people about it. God, there's no easier time of year to spread the good news of your glory to our friends and to the people that we care about so much. So I pray that you would give us the wisdom and the insight and the courage to do just that. And that this season we would invite, we would compel, we would introduce, we would be courageous, and we would engage in conversations that maybe we're fearful of, but we know that we are so compelled by our love for you and our love for them that we want to see them love you. Help us to do that, Father. In Jesus' name, amen.

Good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here, and I'm very excited for the series. I hope that you guys had a good Thanksgiving. For the Rectors, it's a whirlwind. It's six and a half hours to Atlanta on Monday, five hours to Dothan on Wednesday, six hours to Greenville on Friday, and four and a half hours to Raleigh on Saturday, which is 22 hours of travel. So if you see my children and they look a little bit addled, that's why. But they did great and we had a great time and we saw family and I hope that you did too. But now that we're past that, we have arrived at my favorite time of year at Grace. I love this time of year at grace i i love uh getting to celebrate next week uh as mikey said is uh christmas sweater sunday so i hope you'll bring out your best um i've seen some of yours before and i know they're pretty good so maybe you've upgraded but i hope that we'll all have a good sweater to wear for next week my favorite sunday of the year is fami jammy sunday We'll be like them. Which is more pointedly Amo La Civita every year. I'm looking at you, pal. Let's put something on this year, buddy. But I love this season. I love the Christmas series. I love how fun it is. And for me, obviously, we're celebrating Christmas. We're celebrating what that is. We're celebrating the arrival of Christ. But I also, in my head, as I kind of celebrate the end of the year, I celebrate what God has done at Grace. I celebrate who you are and who we are and God's presence here. I celebrate the people who are committed to this place and who love it so much, and all that God has done. So I think it's a perfect time of year to kind of not only celebrate Christmas and what that means and the arrival of Christ, but to also reflect on what God has done in our church and in our church family and look forward to what He's going to do in the future. To that end, we've got a meeting on December the 14th, immediately following the service to update everybody on the building, where we're at, and exactly what it's going to take to get us where we believe we need to go. And I think we're a lot closer than people suspect. So I'm optimistic for that meeting and I'm hopeful that you'll make it a priority to be there. I also know that that's on the same Sunday that we're doing the kids caroling. So there's going to be grandparents and stuff like that here. So to the young families, I would encourage you maybe bring two cars that day and one party can stay behind and attend the meeting and then the rest can go out to eat with grandma and grandpa and then you can can catch up later, because let's be honest, that lunch is overrated, and you probably just want to be here. Anyways. This series, here we go, is it, was, Wassailing, here we go, Wassailing. As Aaron mentioned, it was either Aaron or Mikey, I don't pay much attention. A few years ago, either last fall or fall before last, we did a series called The Songs We Sing. And we looked at the songs that we sing as a church, some of the hymns and praise choruses that we do, and we found them in the Bible. And we said, let's kind of imbue them with more meaning by looking at these songs. And it's a Christmas series that I've always wanted to do. And so this year we're going to do that. We're going to look at a Christmas carol each week and look at how it's imbued with meaning through scripture. We're going to climax this on Christmas Eve, looking at the greatest song that's ever been written, in my opinion, Oh Holy Night. And so I'm very excited to do that, but we've got some good songs along the way. And we have a song that we're focused on this morning that if you were paying attention to the video, you already know what it is. Or if you've looked through the notes to try to see what the fill in the blanks are, you already know what it is. But I'm not going to tell you yet if you haven't done either of those things. The first thing I'm going to do is make the opening point. This is the least expected opening point that I'm going to put on the screen in the history of Grace Raleigh, okay? A few weeks ago, I had a point that said something like, faith is like a Brazilian steakhouse. And Carly, who I send the notes to, who puts them on the bulletin, emailed me back and she said, I can't wait to see what this is about. And then I sent her this week's notes and she said, I never thought you would top Brazilian steakhouse, but I'm about to. Here's the first point of the sermon. Be like Keith Cathcart. Yeah. Where's Keith? Hey, buddy. Don't let him go, Keck. Be like Keith Cathcart. Here's my second point. Sort of. Okay. Now that we're clear. Now listen, before I just dump on him for the rest of the sermon, let's be clear. Keith is a really good friend of mine. I love Keith. I have a policy in my house. I do not pay money to a handyman of any kind until I've gotten permission from Keith. When there is something wrong in my house, I call him and I say, I think I need to call somebody to come fix this. And he will often say to me, if you call somebody to fix that, I will not be your friend anymore. I cannot respect you as a man. Keith has stood on the safe confines of my deck while I was up on my roof with FaceTiming him, showing him some flashing underneath some shingles and he helped me repair it. And we did, we fixed the leak. Did we not? Yeah, we did. So he's a good buddy. He's also the greatest evangelist I've ever met in my life. And this is true. Keith evangelizes like no one I've ever met. He espouses his beliefs more zealously and more effectively than any Christian I've ever known. The problem is he's an evangelist for the Steelers, not Jesus. Although I'm sure he does evangelize for Jesus from time to time. He's an incredibly effective evangelist for the Steelers. As a matter of fact, to prove it to you, I texted him earlier in the week. And I said, hey, I'm not going to tell you why. I just need you to text me pictures of people you've converted to Steelers fans. I just need three or four pictures. Dude sent me 20. 20 pictures. And he said, this is just the beginning. He got so excited about it. He's going down to Mexico to celebrate Christmas, to do a Christmas celebration with our ministry partners there. And he printed up terrible towels that say Feliz Navidad. And he's going to hand them out to 200 children and get them to wave them at once. And he told me it's going to be the greatest moment of my life. Just so you don't think I'm making this up, I wanted to share with you some of the people that Keith has evangelized for the Steelers. So let's take a look, Lynn. This is a young man at our church. He did not grow up in Pittsburgh. He does not care about the Steelers, but now he does. His mom made the mistake of going to Mexico with Keith and the rest of the team. They didn't just go to Mexico together, let's be clear. Sorry, Miel. There was like a whole group of people. They all went together. That's funny. He converted him. This is Patrick. Patrick did not, he's wearing, I don't know, Patrick, are you in the service this morning? Yeah, there he is. He's wearing that jersey. I didn't even tell him to. He didn't even know that this was happening. He's caught the virus, okay? Keith gave him that jersey. He's so proud of himself. Look at that dumb grin on Keith's face. Look at him. He's evangelizing for the Steelers. What's the next one? Is this Chucky? Oh, no. This is a guy. This is a random dude from Home Depot. That's who that is. That is Casey. Casey. Thank you, Keck. Keck is also in Steelers gear. Did you purchase that gear, Keck? Or did Keith? He puts on his hat. Yes, that's a random guy from Home Depot that is now a Steelers fan because of Keith. Who's the next one? Chucky. Chucky is the foreman in Mexico. Now this, I'll give Keith some credit as much as it pains me. Keith has been going to Mexico for darn near 20 years. And he met Chucky when Chucky was in seventh grade and was a volunteer working to get a home for his family. And he has gone through the years and he is now the foreman of the work crews for Faith Ministry, the ministry with which we partner. Every year, Keith goes down and he spends time with Chucky. And every year, he gives Chucky more Steelers crap. He has gotten birth announcements, wedding announcements, engagement announcements. That is like a surrogate son to Keith, and that's a very special person to us here at Grace. So I don't want to make light of it, but also, look at that. He's got all kinds of Steeler stuff. Can I tell you this? He even got me. Here I am. I went, too. I figured if I was gonna be in Pittsburgh, I needed to look the part, so I shaved down to a mustache, which I would say looks awesome. And here's the worst part. Do we have it, Aaron? He got my children. He got them too. But do you know what I did with those towels? Last time we had the hootenanny and we had the grill, the Blackstone needs a towel to clean up the grease I use those just so we know all right that's enough of that Keith is the most effective evangelist I've ever met in my life he loves the Steelers he wants everyone else to love the Steelers and he and it's a point of pride and joy when other people love his team too. And it's harmless and it's fun. But he, as I was thinking about the song this morning, he embodies this song better than anyone I've ever met, which is this, Go Tell It on the Mountain. We know this Christmas carol. Go tell it on the mountain. Go proclaim it. Here's the chorus of the carol. Let's look at it together. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. I love this carol. I thought it was the right place to begin the series. I don't know how you guys do it in your house, but at our house, after Halloween, the first weekend after Halloween, we decorate for Christmas. I know that's crazy. I know. But here's what Jen and I say. There's nothing wrong with a little extra Christmas in the house. We love our living room with lights and a tree and the ambiance. And during the year, we got our TV up on the mantle, you know, like you're supposed to do in 2025. And then bracketing the TV, we have these potted plants that are fake that have like different like plumes coming out of them like you're supposed to. But at Christmas, they're reindeers, and it's cooler. And then instead of just this naked mantle, there's garland with lights on it. And so it's just festive. And then we turn on the gas fire that emits zero heat whatsoever. And it's more cozy in there. So in our house, we decorate for Christmas the first weekend after Halloween and the first school day after Halloween we get in the car and Lily will say, Daddy, can we listen to Christmas carols now? And we do. On the way to school we listen to Christmas carols. We've got a playlist. We've added to it over the years. She has her favorites. I have mine. If you haven't listened to Barbara Streisand's version of Jingle Bells, it's the best in the whole wide world and I love it. I highly recommend. But one of my favorite songs that we listen to in the car together is Go Tell It on the Mountain. It's fun. It's festive. It's energetic. And it really gets across the point of the season. This idea of go be an evangelist. Here's what Keith does for the Steelers. As he goes and he tells it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Everywhere he goes, he's going to tell you about the Steelers. He's going to give you a terrible towel. He's going to give you a jersey that you don't want, that your children are going to wear, and now your host. But he's going to go and he's going to tell. And that's what this song is about. Go tell it on the mountain. Go tell people about Jesus. And this is a fundamental part of our faith that we don't talk about often enough. I'll be the first person to admit that I'm bad at evangelism. I don't do it as often as I should. And before I get into the sermon too far, making a crude analogy that's clumsy, it's far easier to evangelize for your team than it is to evangelize for your Savior. Because there's not a bunch of social emotional baggage wrapped up in your team. Keith doesn't go tell people that they should root for the Steelers and then get the response, I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but the fans of the Steelers are hypocrites and they hurt me. I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but I have existential reasons to believe that the Steelers don't exist. I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but I have this and this and this reason why I just can't do that anymore. You tell someone to root for the Steelers, and they're like, no, I like the Falcons, and you're like, I'm so sorry for you and your life, but I understand. But you tell someone to convert to your Savior, and it becomes a lot more complicated and a lot more deep. And so it's a clumsy comparison. And the point of the story isn't to guilt Keith into sharing Jesus with the same zeal that he shares the Steelers. Although, Keith, maybe. But it's a clumsy comparison if you want to make it one-to-one. Nevertheless, evangelism and going and telling it on the mountain is a fundamental part of what it is to be a Christian. And here's how I know that this is true. I don't know if you've ever thought about the disciples in this way, but I have a cousin. I was just with him over his cousin-in-law, actually. He's an OBGYN, and he had to go through a ton of school to get to practice as a doctor. And the last part of school that you do when you're pursuing the medical field is residency. You go and you follow actual doctors who are licensed. And you that's what the disciples were doing. The disciples were in residency with Jesus. They were being trained by him. They were being prepared for ministry. And this is not the point of the sermon, but just by way of thought exercise, I doubt that you've ever considered, why didn't Jesus, if what Jesus came to do is come and live a perfect life and die a perfect death, why didn't he die on the cross when he was 21? Why didn't he die when he was 18? Why didn't he die when he was 30? Why didn't he just come down here, live a sinless life, die a perfect death, and be our perfect sacrifice, which is what we believe that he was and is? I'll tell you why. Because he wanted to spend the last years of his life training young men in residency to take over the church. To do what he did. And so that's what the disciples were doing. They were in residency learning how to lead what would be known as the church. Because the church didn't exist as an idea before Jesus implanted it into the minds and the practices of the disciples. And when he left, he said, now go and spread the good news to the corners of the earth, to all the nations. Go to the ends of the earth and tell them who I am, baptizing people in my name. Go make disciples in Jerusalem and Judea and all of the ends of the earth. The reason that Jesus didn't just live and die was to train the disciples. You understand? And fundamental to that training was evangelism. It was so fundamental that 30 years after the death of Christ, when Mark and Luke, and Mark wrote the gospel on behalf of Peter, and Luke wrote the gospel to, oh, blessed Theophilus, to explain to this man named Theophilus what was going on, and then to explain to humans for the rest of time what was going on. It was so important to them that they included this story in Mark chapter 6 and in Luke chapter 9. Two of the disciples thought that this part of their training was so important that it needed to be recounted. In Mark chapter 6 and Luke chapter 9, you can look it up if you want to. I'm not going to read the verses. Jesus sent out the disciples two by two. He said, go in pairs, go into the surrounding towns, cast out demons and heal, and tell them the good news of the gospel. Tell them who I am. Tell them what I've done. Tell them what I'm going to do. And we often, those of us who know our Bible, associate that with the end of the story, which is if they don't receive you, shake the dust of that town off of your sandals as you go, which is to say, like, I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore and go. And we like that because that way, if evangelism doesn't work, we don't have to feel bad and whatever. But the point of that story, the point of that recounting, the reason that it's included in the gospels, the reason that Peter and Mark and Luke felt compelled to include that in their narrative and in their recounting of their experience with the Messiah is to say the point is we were told to go and tell other people about Jesus. We were told to go and evangelize. And so it is unavoidable that part of our Christian experience is to tell people about the Jesus that we love. Now listen, I want to be really clear here. If you're new to the faith, if you're questioning the faith, if you're here kicking the tires to see if faith is for you, I'm not preaching to you this morning. This is not for you. I don't want you to feel an ounce of responsibility for the things that I'm about to say. I just would invite you to soak it in and know that this is what we're about. But if you're a Christian, if you're not kicking the tires, if God is your Father and Jesus is your Savior, if you believe that Jesus is who he says he is, did what he said he did, and is going to do what he says he's going to do, then this is for you. And this should compel us. A fundamental part of your life, of your faith, is evangelism. Is to tell people about your Jesus. And I know that this makes us deeply uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. It's an uncomfortable conversation. But that does not negate the fact that it is a biblical imperative, that it was a course requirement for the residency of the disciples, and it is an expectation that Jesus himself places on you to go tell it on the mountain, to go tell it everywhere, to go tell people about the Jesus that you love. And in our culture and in our context, go tell people why you still love him. Go tell people why you stayed in church and they left. Go tell people why you've come back to church after wandering for a while. Go tell people what Jesus has done for you. Go tell people about the sense of peace that he's given you. Christians, go tell people about the sense of worth that he's given your soul. Christians, go tell people about the purpose that he's given you in the waning years of your life. I know many of us are at the point of our life where we're thinking, we're not thinking about a cruel, we're thinking about legacy. What do we leave behind? Go tell people what you want to leave behind and why. Go tell people what you want to build in your building years and why. If you're young, go tell people what you want to do with your life. And why? Go tell people how you want to raise your kids and what you want them to do. And why? Go tell people about your Jesus and why you're sticking with it and why you're still doing it and why you still have faith and why you still bother to get up on a Sunday morning and to do your makeup and to do your hair and to tuck in your shirt and to blouse your sweatshirt, which is something I just learned this morning. Go tell people why you bother to do that instead of sleep in. And don't just keep it to yourself as this personal private thing that's my business and not their business and I don't want to offend anyone. No. Go tell it. Go tell people what Jesus has done for you. If you serve in the community, tell people why you do. If you're kind to someone at the office that other people are not kind to, tell people why you're kind to them. If you pray for your grandchildren, tell people what you hope for your grandchildren and what you pray for them. I think in 2025, this idea of evangelism, it used to be when I was growing up in the 80s, evangelism was like, go tell people the good news. Go tell people about this Jesus. They may have never heard of him before. He forgives their sins. And he omits their shame. He erases it. And he's conquered sin and death so that we don't have to be afraid of him. So that we don't have to be afraid of it. Go tell them the good news. Go tell them that Jesus exists. And it was this idea that you could sit down with a person and be like, let me tell you about the person in this Bible that the whole Bible is about. It's about Jesus. Let me tell you about him and how he erases all of your guilt and shame for all of your life and accepts you for who you are and makes a passage into heaven for you for eternity. And then the idea was that they would hear that and be like, my gosh, I've never heard that before. That's incredible news. I'd like to be a Christian. Is that true now? The people in your life that you know who either don't believe in Jesus or are not actively engaged in faith, they have a reason. They have a reason. And it's a good one. I don't know what it is, but it's a good reason. The people that you know in your life who are atheists, when I was coming up, do you know what I was taught? Atheists are dumb. And if you'll just do a couple easy arguments with them, you'll win, and they'll convert immediately. Have you guys found that to be true? The atheists in your life probably, some of them are dumb, just like some of you are dumb. But most of them are pretty smart. And some of you are pretty smart. Begrudgingly. Evangelism is different in 2025. But I think an interesting way to engage the conversation is to say, here's why I'm still doing what I'm doing. Here's why I'm still here. Serving my God, praising my Jesus, worshiping my Lord. And I think that's an interesting place to start the conversation. But the larger point is, we can't get around the fact that evangelism is an essential part of Christian life. And I bring that up because Christmas is the perfect time to go tell it. Christmas is the perfect time to go tell it. Our whole world rallies around this holiday, right? Our whole world commercializes this holiday. This is when all the holiday stuff starts. This is when they start telling you to buy presents. This is when Lexus every year comes out with the most ridiculous ad campaign I've ever seen with a red bow on a $75,000 SUV as a Christmas present. Listen, I've often said I don't believe in reincarnation, but if it's true, I want to come back as a member of a family that gives away Lexuses at Christmas. And if any of you are giving Lexuses as Christmas gifts, consider the building campaign. It could help. Our whole culture rallies around this holiday. We commercialize it and we make it about gifts and all the things and family and decorations and lights and we celebrate. But Christians, we hold the truth of it. I am not going to say that Jesus is the reason for this season. I will not preach that. Although he is. We hold the truth of what this season is about. It's about Jesus. It's about his arrival. When I preach on Christmas Eve, it's going to be the phrase, long lay the world in sin and error pining until he appeared and the soul felt its worth. Oh, that's the most compelling line ever written. That's what Christmas is about. It gives us a sense of worth and purpose and hope and joy. And we know that better than anyone around us who doesn't love Jesus and who isn't spiritually engaged. So Christmas is the easiest and best time of year to go tell it. And let me tell you an easy way, the easiest possible way to go tell it and to evangelize your friends. This is going to sound self-serving, but I'm going to explain it. The easiest, I can't think of an easier invite than a Christmas Eve service. Can you? How easy is it? I've got some friends. I'm not setting myself up as moral exemplar. I'm a terrible evangelist. But one thing I have done in my life is Lily was a part of a soccer team for years. My daughter Lily, she's nine. She'll be 10 in January, which is nuts. And I coach. I have a soccer background and I coach. And I got to be friends with the coach and her husband, Heidi and Trey, and their daughters, Josie and Hannah. And Lily decided to quit. And I was like, I like this community. I'm going to keep coaching. And I'm also convicted that I asked you guys to volunteer. This is an organization that runs on volunteers. And so you guys give up an extra day to volunteer here. And I get paid to be here. And I don't volunteer anywhere else. So I thought maybe I should practice what I preach and volunteer somewhere. So I coach. So I kept going. And people are like, you're just a creepy guy coaching nine-year-old girls, and your daughter's not on the team. I'm like, yeah, it's cool. Don't worry about it. But I volunteered, and I enjoy that relationship with them. And there's another coach on the team, a guy named Vishal, who's from Pakistan. And I enjoy him too. And I've developed a relationship with him such that I told him when I get back from Thanksgiving, he actually said, let's get drinks or let's get wings or something like that. And so I'm going to go out and spend some time with what we call Coach V. And I was actually in the lead up to this, I realized I need to invite Heidi and Trey to the Christmas Eve service. And here's why this is such an easy invite. They're people of faith, but they don't go to a church. It's marginal for them. But they probably want to celebrate Christmas Eve somewhere with their family. There's a chance they want to go to church somewhere. So why not just invite them to Grace? And it's actually funny, we've joked about them coming to Grace and they said, we kind of like you being our friend and not our pastor. And I'm like, I kind of like you being my friend and not someone who comes to my church. It's nice. But I bet you have people in your life where it would be a really easy invite to just say, hey, I don't know if you're going to celebrate Christmas Eve anywhere. I don't know if you're part of a church right now, but you can come to my church. And at that service, can we show them that we take our Jesus very seriously and we don't take ourselves very seriously at all? Can we model for them what church can be? Can we show them who our Jesus is? Can we use that service to go and tell it? And now here, this is very important to me. I'm not preaching this sermon to get you to invite people to Christmas Eve, okay? I don't care, and I don't think you understand how true this is. I don't care how many people come to the Christmas Eve service. I'm gonna have a good Christmas with my family either way. I'm not trying to get butts in seats I never have. I've never, ever, and some of you know you've been here for all eight years, stood up here and tried to compel you to invite people to grace for the sake of grace. I've never done that. And I never will. But it does occur to me, invite them to Summit's Christmas Eve service if you think I'm full of it. I don't care. Go to a Christmas Eve service with your neighbors. That's not the point here. I'm not trying to fill up our services. But what I am presenting to you is the easiest of opportunities. Is it easier to invite your neighbor, your coworker, a family on your kid's ball team, an associate, whatever? Is it easier to go, hey, I don't know if you wanted to celebrate Christmas Eve in a church but if you do come to mine it's gonna be pretty okay and here's how I know it's gonna be pretty okay the sermons like 12 minutes that day and then it's all songs all right so we know we're in good hands Aaron's got it is it easier to invite them to that or in March? Hey, do you want to come to church with me on Sunday? Yikes. That's a tougher one. I hope you will. I'm just saying, I'm just acknowledging what we all know. So it's never been easier to go tell it than it is this Christmas season. So I hope that you'll consider that as a way to kind of open the door to conversation with some people that you care about. And I hope that maybe you'll leave her thinking about who can I invite to the Christmas Eve service. And again, if you think this is remotely self-serving, take them to Summit. I couldn't care less. I would, I would, listen, I would rather you invite people to Summit's Christmas Eve service and go with them and let them experience church there than I would you come by yourself having never invited anyone. Okay? But if you want to bring them here and let us show them what it's like to worship Jesus together and celebrate who he is, what a wonderful introduction into church. There's never been an easier time or season to go tell it. Now, I don't just want us to go tell it this season. I want us to continue to do it. So three very quick ways because I just realized it's 1056 and I'm going to move very quickly through these. Three very easy ways to be an evangelist. Okay? First, this sounds cheesy but it's true. Wear it. Wear it. Keith, did you wear a hat this morning? Yeah. What is it? Nah. Keck, you, listen, you don't have to spend more than 15 minutes with Keith to know that he's a Steelers fan. All right? Huh? Always. Always. That's right. It's on his car. If you go to his house, it's all over his dumb basement. Well, I don't even think he has a dumb basement anymore. He has like an apartment because he's building a house. But it's all over his stupid apartment. It's on his clothes. It's where he wears it. You go to his office, it's all over the place. It's everywhere. If you experience Keith, you experience the Steelers. And it reminds me of this verse in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 14, that says, We are led in triumphal procession by Christ, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of God. I love that verse because it's this idea that passively from us wafts this knowledge of God passively from, from Keith, unfortunately wafts this love of the Steelers. You just, it just is infectious. He just does. And what if we love Jesus in such a way? What if we wore it? And this is, this is so funny. I wrote this point before I knew I'd be wearing a gray sweatshirt that we're currently selling this morning. We're not commercializing this. I'm not making any money off of it. Actually, I get 5% of every sweatshirt. So please. Wear your gray stuff to the gym. Wear it to the soccer field. Put it in your office. So that when people come in your office, they know this person loves Jesus. Put it in your home. Put verses on your walls so that when they come over to your house, when your neighbors come over, they know passively this person loves Jesus. This family loves Jesus. This home is oriented around Jesus. Make it so that wherever people go in your life, when they encounter you, whether it's in your car with what you're listening to, with what you're wearing to different things, and I'm not actually saying that you should wear a grace logo every day to work. That would be ridiculous. But I think you get my point. Put it out there that if you know me, you know I love my Jesus. Regardless of church, wear it. Make it visible so that people passively know who you are allied to. Second is live it. Live it. In Matthew 5, 16, we find one of the most challenging verses in Scripture which which says, Let your light shine before men so that they might see your good works and so glorify your Father who is in heaven. This is more than passive. This is if someone were to follow you through your day, just by seeing you move in and out of conversation and people, they would see that you are so different, that you are so other, that you are so holy, that they would want to know more about you and glorify your Father who is in heaven. If you want to be an evangelist, spread the good news of Jesus and what he's done for you. Live that out. Be kind to the cashier. Be patient in traffic. Be considerate of the co-worker that no one else likes. Be even-handed in your dealings. Have character in your deals. Be honest in your negotiations. Do not backstab your co-workers. Be forthright even when it's hard. Tell the truth even when it's inconvenient. Be loving to your spouse even when they're being a jerk. And they deserve to be clapped back at. You can talk to Jen about how to do that if you need some examples. Do not yell unnecessarily at your children. Do not lose your temper. Be people of a meek countenance and kind such that others see your good work and so glorify your Father who is in heaven. Live it out. The last way we evangelize is to love it. Do you know why Keith tells everyone about the Steelers? Because he loves the Steelers. And when you love them, it brings him joy. It's a maniacal, twisted joy that's harming to humanity. Nevertheless, it's what compels him. And here's what I would say to you as a challenge. If you find yourself convicted because you're not someone who evangelizes for your Jesus, maybe, maybe it's a love issue. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to soften it. Maybe if you found yourself loving him more, you would tell other people about him more. I know the reason that my buddy tells people about the team he loves is because he loves them so much that it brings him joy when you love them too. And if we don't love Jesus so much that it brings us joy to see other people begin to love him too, then maybe we don't love him enough. And if we want to be evangelists, instead of looking out, what we need to do is look in and ask the Father to cultivate a love for him and what he's done in our hearts, so much so that we are so compelled to go and tell it. So I'm going to invite up Aaron and pray. And we're going to sing Go Tell It on the mountain together. And we're going to mean it. Yeah? Let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for Keith, I guess. Thank you for a Jesus who loves us so well, loves us so much. I pray that we would be so compelled by that love that we would go and tell other people about it. God, there's no easier time of year to spread the good news of your glory to our friends and to the people that we care about so much. So I pray that you would give us the wisdom and the insight and the courage to do just that. And that this season we would invite, we would compel, we would introduce, we would be courageous, and we would engage in conversations that maybe we're fearful of, but we know that we are so compelled by our love for you and our love for them that we want to see them love you. Help us to do that, Father. In Jesus' name, amen.

Good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here, and I'm very excited for the series. I hope that you guys had a good Thanksgiving. For the Rectors, it's a whirlwind. It's six and a half hours to Atlanta on Monday, five hours to Dothan on Wednesday, six hours to Greenville on Friday, and four and a half hours to Raleigh on Saturday, which is 22 hours of travel. So if you see my children and they look a little bit addled, that's why. But they did great and we had a great time and we saw family and I hope that you did too. But now that we're past that, we have arrived at my favorite time of year at Grace. I love this time of year at grace i i love uh getting to celebrate next week uh as mikey said is uh christmas sweater sunday so i hope you'll bring out your best um i've seen some of yours before and i know they're pretty good so maybe you've upgraded but i hope that we'll all have a good sweater to wear for next week my favorite sunday of the year is fami jammy sunday We'll be like them. Which is more pointedly Amo La Civita every year. I'm looking at you, pal. Let's put something on this year, buddy. But I love this season. I love the Christmas series. I love how fun it is. And for me, obviously, we're celebrating Christmas. We're celebrating what that is. We're celebrating the arrival of Christ. But I also, in my head, as I kind of celebrate the end of the year, I celebrate what God has done at Grace. I celebrate who you are and who we are and God's presence here. I celebrate the people who are committed to this place and who love it so much, and all that God has done. So I think it's a perfect time of year to kind of not only celebrate Christmas and what that means and the arrival of Christ, but to also reflect on what God has done in our church and in our church family and look forward to what He's going to do in the future. To that end, we've got a meeting on December the 14th, immediately following the service to update everybody on the building, where we're at, and exactly what it's going to take to get us where we believe we need to go. And I think we're a lot closer than people suspect. So I'm optimistic for that meeting and I'm hopeful that you'll make it a priority to be there. I also know that that's on the same Sunday that we're doing the kids caroling. So there's going to be grandparents and stuff like that here. So to the young families, I would encourage you maybe bring two cars that day and one party can stay behind and attend the meeting and then the rest can go out to eat with grandma and grandpa and then you can can catch up later, because let's be honest, that lunch is overrated, and you probably just want to be here. Anyways. This series, here we go, is it, was, Wassailing, here we go, Wassailing. As Aaron mentioned, it was either Aaron or Mikey, I don't pay much attention. A few years ago, either last fall or fall before last, we did a series called The Songs We Sing. And we looked at the songs that we sing as a church, some of the hymns and praise choruses that we do, and we found them in the Bible. And we said, let's kind of imbue them with more meaning by looking at these songs. And it's a Christmas series that I've always wanted to do. And so this year we're going to do that. We're going to look at a Christmas carol each week and look at how it's imbued with meaning through scripture. We're going to climax this on Christmas Eve, looking at the greatest song that's ever been written, in my opinion, Oh Holy Night. And so I'm very excited to do that, but we've got some good songs along the way. And we have a song that we're focused on this morning that if you were paying attention to the video, you already know what it is. Or if you've looked through the notes to try to see what the fill in the blanks are, you already know what it is. But I'm not going to tell you yet if you haven't done either of those things. The first thing I'm going to do is make the opening point. This is the least expected opening point that I'm going to put on the screen in the history of Grace Raleigh, okay? A few weeks ago, I had a point that said something like, faith is like a Brazilian steakhouse. And Carly, who I send the notes to, who puts them on the bulletin, emailed me back and she said, I can't wait to see what this is about. And then I sent her this week's notes and she said, I never thought you would top Brazilian steakhouse, but I'm about to. Here's the first point of the sermon. Be like Keith Cathcart. Yeah. Where's Keith? Hey, buddy. Don't let him go, Keck. Be like Keith Cathcart. Here's my second point. Sort of. Okay. Now that we're clear. Now listen, before I just dump on him for the rest of the sermon, let's be clear. Keith is a really good friend of mine. I love Keith. I have a policy in my house. I do not pay money to a handyman of any kind until I've gotten permission from Keith. When there is something wrong in my house, I call him and I say, I think I need to call somebody to come fix this. And he will often say to me, if you call somebody to fix that, I will not be your friend anymore. I cannot respect you as a man. Keith has stood on the safe confines of my deck while I was up on my roof with FaceTiming him, showing him some flashing underneath some shingles and he helped me repair it. And we did, we fixed the leak. Did we not? Yeah, we did. So he's a good buddy. He's also the greatest evangelist I've ever met in my life. And this is true. Keith evangelizes like no one I've ever met. He espouses his beliefs more zealously and more effectively than any Christian I've ever known. The problem is he's an evangelist for the Steelers, not Jesus. Although I'm sure he does evangelize for Jesus from time to time. He's an incredibly effective evangelist for the Steelers. As a matter of fact, to prove it to you, I texted him earlier in the week. And I said, hey, I'm not going to tell you why. I just need you to text me pictures of people you've converted to Steelers fans. I just need three or four pictures. Dude sent me 20. 20 pictures. And he said, this is just the beginning. He got so excited about it. He's going down to Mexico to celebrate Christmas, to do a Christmas celebration with our ministry partners there. And he printed up terrible towels that say Feliz Navidad. And he's going to hand them out to 200 children and get them to wave them at once. And he told me it's going to be the greatest moment of my life. Just so you don't think I'm making this up, I wanted to share with you some of the people that Keith has evangelized for the Steelers. So let's take a look, Lynn. This is a young man at our church. He did not grow up in Pittsburgh. He does not care about the Steelers, but now he does. His mom made the mistake of going to Mexico with Keith and the rest of the team. They didn't just go to Mexico together, let's be clear. Sorry, Miel. There was like a whole group of people. They all went together. That's funny. He converted him. This is Patrick. Patrick did not, he's wearing, I don't know, Patrick, are you in the service this morning? Yeah, there he is. He's wearing that jersey. I didn't even tell him to. He didn't even know that this was happening. He's caught the virus, okay? Keith gave him that jersey. He's so proud of himself. Look at that dumb grin on Keith's face. Look at him. He's evangelizing for the Steelers. What's the next one? Is this Chucky? Oh, no. This is a guy. This is a random dude from Home Depot. That's who that is. That is Casey. Casey. Thank you, Keck. Keck is also in Steelers gear. Did you purchase that gear, Keck? Or did Keith? He puts on his hat. Yes, that's a random guy from Home Depot that is now a Steelers fan because of Keith. Who's the next one? Chucky. Chucky is the foreman in Mexico. Now this, I'll give Keith some credit as much as it pains me. Keith has been going to Mexico for darn near 20 years. And he met Chucky when Chucky was in seventh grade and was a volunteer working to get a home for his family. And he has gone through the years and he is now the foreman of the work crews for Faith Ministry, the ministry with which we partner. Every year, Keith goes down and he spends time with Chucky. And every year, he gives Chucky more Steelers crap. He has gotten birth announcements, wedding announcements, engagement announcements. That is like a surrogate son to Keith, and that's a very special person to us here at Grace. So I don't want to make light of it, but also, look at that. He's got all kinds of Steeler stuff. Can I tell you this? He even got me. Here I am. I went, too. I figured if I was gonna be in Pittsburgh, I needed to look the part, so I shaved down to a mustache, which I would say looks awesome. And here's the worst part. Do we have it, Aaron? He got my children. He got them too. But do you know what I did with those towels? Last time we had the hootenanny and we had the grill, the Blackstone needs a towel to clean up the grease I use those just so we know all right that's enough of that Keith is the most effective evangelist I've ever met in my life he loves the Steelers he wants everyone else to love the Steelers and he and it's a point of pride and joy when other people love his team too. And it's harmless and it's fun. But he, as I was thinking about the song this morning, he embodies this song better than anyone I've ever met, which is this, Go Tell It on the Mountain. We know this Christmas carol. Go tell it on the mountain. Go proclaim it. Here's the chorus of the carol. Let's look at it together. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. I love this carol. I thought it was the right place to begin the series. I don't know how you guys do it in your house, but at our house, after Halloween, the first weekend after Halloween, we decorate for Christmas. I know that's crazy. I know. But here's what Jen and I say. There's nothing wrong with a little extra Christmas in the house. We love our living room with lights and a tree and the ambiance. And during the year, we got our TV up on the mantle, you know, like you're supposed to do in 2025. And then bracketing the TV, we have these potted plants that are fake that have like different like plumes coming out of them like you're supposed to. But at Christmas, they're reindeers, and it's cooler. And then instead of just this naked mantle, there's garland with lights on it. And so it's just festive. And then we turn on the gas fire that emits zero heat whatsoever. And it's more cozy in there. So in our house, we decorate for Christmas the first weekend after Halloween and the first school day after Halloween we get in the car and Lily will say, Daddy, can we listen to Christmas carols now? And we do. On the way to school we listen to Christmas carols. We've got a playlist. We've added to it over the years. She has her favorites. I have mine. If you haven't listened to Barbara Streisand's version of Jingle Bells, it's the best in the whole wide world and I love it. I highly recommend. But one of my favorite songs that we listen to in the car together is Go Tell It on the Mountain. It's fun. It's festive. It's energetic. And it really gets across the point of the season. This idea of go be an evangelist. Here's what Keith does for the Steelers. As he goes and he tells it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Everywhere he goes, he's going to tell you about the Steelers. He's going to give you a terrible towel. He's going to give you a jersey that you don't want, that your children are going to wear, and now your host. But he's going to go and he's going to tell. And that's what this song is about. Go tell it on the mountain. Go tell people about Jesus. And this is a fundamental part of our faith that we don't talk about often enough. I'll be the first person to admit that I'm bad at evangelism. I don't do it as often as I should. And before I get into the sermon too far, making a crude analogy that's clumsy, it's far easier to evangelize for your team than it is to evangelize for your Savior. Because there's not a bunch of social emotional baggage wrapped up in your team. Keith doesn't go tell people that they should root for the Steelers and then get the response, I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but the fans of the Steelers are hypocrites and they hurt me. I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but I have existential reasons to believe that the Steelers don't exist. I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but I have this and this and this reason why I just can't do that anymore. You tell someone to root for the Steelers, and they're like, no, I like the Falcons, and you're like, I'm so sorry for you and your life, but I understand. But you tell someone to convert to your Savior, and it becomes a lot more complicated and a lot more deep. And so it's a clumsy comparison. And the point of the story isn't to guilt Keith into sharing Jesus with the same zeal that he shares the Steelers. Although, Keith, maybe. But it's a clumsy comparison if you want to make it one-to-one. Nevertheless, evangelism and going and telling it on the mountain is a fundamental part of what it is to be a Christian. And here's how I know that this is true. I don't know if you've ever thought about the disciples in this way, but I have a cousin. I was just with him over his cousin-in-law, actually. He's an OBGYN, and he had to go through a ton of school to get to practice as a doctor. And the last part of school that you do when you're pursuing the medical field is residency. You go and you follow actual doctors who are licensed. And you that's what the disciples were doing. The disciples were in residency with Jesus. They were being trained by him. They were being prepared for ministry. And this is not the point of the sermon, but just by way of thought exercise, I doubt that you've ever considered, why didn't Jesus, if what Jesus came to do is come and live a perfect life and die a perfect death, why didn't he die on the cross when he was 21? Why didn't he die when he was 18? Why didn't he die when he was 30? Why didn't he just come down here, live a sinless life, die a perfect death, and be our perfect sacrifice, which is what we believe that he was and is? I'll tell you why. Because he wanted to spend the last years of his life training young men in residency to take over the church. To do what he did. And so that's what the disciples were doing. They were in residency learning how to lead what would be known as the church. Because the church didn't exist as an idea before Jesus implanted it into the minds and the practices of the disciples. And when he left, he said, now go and spread the good news to the corners of the earth, to all the nations. Go to the ends of the earth and tell them who I am, baptizing people in my name. Go make disciples in Jerusalem and Judea and all of the ends of the earth. The reason that Jesus didn't just live and die was to train the disciples. You understand? And fundamental to that training was evangelism. It was so fundamental that 30 years after the death of Christ, when Mark and Luke, and Mark wrote the gospel on behalf of Peter, and Luke wrote the gospel to, oh, blessed Theophilus, to explain to this man named Theophilus what was going on, and then to explain to humans for the rest of time what was going on. It was so important to them that they included this story in Mark chapter 6 and in Luke chapter 9. Two of the disciples thought that this part of their training was so important that it needed to be recounted. In Mark chapter 6 and Luke chapter 9, you can look it up if you want to. I'm not going to read the verses. Jesus sent out the disciples two by two. He said, go in pairs, go into the surrounding towns, cast out demons and heal, and tell them the good news of the gospel. Tell them who I am. Tell them what I've done. Tell them what I'm going to do. And we often, those of us who know our Bible, associate that with the end of the story, which is if they don't receive you, shake the dust of that town off of your sandals as you go, which is to say, like, I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore and go. And we like that because that way, if evangelism doesn't work, we don't have to feel bad and whatever. But the point of that story, the point of that recounting, the reason that it's included in the gospels, the reason that Peter and Mark and Luke felt compelled to include that in their narrative and in their recounting of their experience with the Messiah is to say the point is we were told to go and tell other people about Jesus. We were told to go and evangelize. And so it is unavoidable that part of our Christian experience is to tell people about the Jesus that we love. Now listen, I want to be really clear here. If you're new to the faith, if you're questioning the faith, if you're here kicking the tires to see if faith is for you, I'm not preaching to you this morning. This is not for you. I don't want you to feel an ounce of responsibility for the things that I'm about to say. I just would invite you to soak it in and know that this is what we're about. But if you're a Christian, if you're not kicking the tires, if God is your Father and Jesus is your Savior, if you believe that Jesus is who he says he is, did what he said he did, and is going to do what he says he's going to do, then this is for you. And this should compel us. A fundamental part of your life, of your faith, is evangelism. Is to tell people about your Jesus. And I know that this makes us deeply uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. It's an uncomfortable conversation. But that does not negate the fact that it is a biblical imperative, that it was a course requirement for the residency of the disciples, and it is an expectation that Jesus himself places on you to go tell it on the mountain, to go tell it everywhere, to go tell people about the Jesus that you love. And in our culture and in our context, go tell people why you still love him. Go tell people why you stayed in church and they left. Go tell people why you've come back to church after wandering for a while. Go tell people what Jesus has done for you. Go tell people about the sense of peace that he's given you. Christians, go tell people about the sense of worth that he's given your soul. Christians, go tell people about the purpose that he's given you in the waning years of your life. I know many of us are at the point of our life where we're thinking, we're not thinking about a cruel, we're thinking about legacy. What do we leave behind? Go tell people what you want to leave behind and why. Go tell people what you want to build in your building years and why. If you're young, go tell people what you want to do with your life. And why? Go tell people how you want to raise your kids and what you want them to do. And why? Go tell people about your Jesus and why you're sticking with it and why you're still doing it and why you still have faith and why you still bother to get up on a Sunday morning and to do your makeup and to do your hair and to tuck in your shirt and to blouse your sweatshirt, which is something I just learned this morning. Go tell people why you bother to do that instead of sleep in. And don't just keep it to yourself as this personal private thing that's my business and not their business and I don't want to offend anyone. No. Go tell it. Go tell people what Jesus has done for you. If you serve in the community, tell people why you do. If you're kind to someone at the office that other people are not kind to, tell people why you're kind to them. If you pray for your grandchildren, tell people what you hope for your grandchildren and what you pray for them. I think in 2025, this idea of evangelism, it used to be when I was growing up in the 80s, evangelism was like, go tell people the good news. Go tell people about this Jesus. They may have never heard of him before. He forgives their sins. And he omits their shame. He erases it. And he's conquered sin and death so that we don't have to be afraid of him. So that we don't have to be afraid of it. Go tell them the good news. Go tell them that Jesus exists. And it was this idea that you could sit down with a person and be like, let me tell you about the person in this Bible that the whole Bible is about. It's about Jesus. Let me tell you about him and how he erases all of your guilt and shame for all of your life and accepts you for who you are and makes a passage into heaven for you for eternity. And then the idea was that they would hear that and be like, my gosh, I've never heard that before. That's incredible news. I'd like to be a Christian. Is that true now? The people in your life that you know who either don't believe in Jesus or are not actively engaged in faith, they have a reason. They have a reason. And it's a good one. I don't know what it is, but it's a good reason. The people that you know in your life who are atheists, when I was coming up, do you know what I was taught? Atheists are dumb. And if you'll just do a couple easy arguments with them, you'll win, and they'll convert immediately. Have you guys found that to be true? The atheists in your life probably, some of them are dumb, just like some of you are dumb. But most of them are pretty smart. And some of you are pretty smart. Begrudgingly. Evangelism is different in 2025. But I think an interesting way to engage the conversation is to say, here's why I'm still doing what I'm doing. Here's why I'm still here. Serving my God, praising my Jesus, worshiping my Lord. And I think that's an interesting place to start the conversation. But the larger point is, we can't get around the fact that evangelism is an essential part of Christian life. And I bring that up because Christmas is the perfect time to go tell it. Christmas is the perfect time to go tell it. Our whole world rallies around this holiday, right? Our whole world commercializes this holiday. This is when all the holiday stuff starts. This is when they start telling you to buy presents. This is when Lexus every year comes out with the most ridiculous ad campaign I've ever seen with a red bow on a $75,000 SUV as a Christmas present. Listen, I've often said I don't believe in reincarnation, but if it's true, I want to come back as a member of a family that gives away Lexuses at Christmas. And if any of you are giving Lexuses as Christmas gifts, consider the building campaign. It could help. Our whole culture rallies around this holiday. We commercialize it and we make it about gifts and all the things and family and decorations and lights and we celebrate. But Christians, we hold the truth of it. I am not going to say that Jesus is the reason for this season. I will not preach that. Although he is. We hold the truth of what this season is about. It's about Jesus. It's about his arrival. When I preach on Christmas Eve, it's going to be the phrase, long lay the world in sin and error pining until he appeared and the soul felt its worth. Oh, that's the most compelling line ever written. That's what Christmas is about. It gives us a sense of worth and purpose and hope and joy. And we know that better than anyone around us who doesn't love Jesus and who isn't spiritually engaged. So Christmas is the easiest and best time of year to go tell it. And let me tell you an easy way, the easiest possible way to go tell it and to evangelize your friends. This is going to sound self-serving, but I'm going to explain it. The easiest, I can't think of an easier invite than a Christmas Eve service. Can you? How easy is it? I've got some friends. I'm not setting myself up as moral exemplar. I'm a terrible evangelist. But one thing I have done in my life is Lily was a part of a soccer team for years. My daughter Lily, she's nine. She'll be 10 in January, which is nuts. And I coach. I have a soccer background and I coach. And I got to be friends with the coach and her husband, Heidi and Trey, and their daughters, Josie and Hannah. And Lily decided to quit. And I was like, I like this community. I'm going to keep coaching. And I'm also convicted that I asked you guys to volunteer. This is an organization that runs on volunteers. And so you guys give up an extra day to volunteer here. And I get paid to be here. And I don't volunteer anywhere else. So I thought maybe I should practice what I preach and volunteer somewhere. So I coach. So I kept going. And people are like, you're just a creepy guy coaching nine-year-old girls, and your daughter's not on the team. I'm like, yeah, it's cool. Don't worry about it. But I volunteered, and I enjoy that relationship with them. And there's another coach on the team, a guy named Vishal, who's from Pakistan. And I enjoy him too. And I've developed a relationship with him such that I told him when I get back from Thanksgiving, he actually said, let's get drinks or let's get wings or something like that. And so I'm going to go out and spend some time with what we call Coach V. And I was actually in the lead up to this, I realized I need to invite Heidi and Trey to the Christmas Eve service. And here's why this is such an easy invite. They're people of faith, but they don't go to a church. It's marginal for them. But they probably want to celebrate Christmas Eve somewhere with their family. There's a chance they want to go to church somewhere. So why not just invite them to Grace? And it's actually funny, we've joked about them coming to Grace and they said, we kind of like you being our friend and not our pastor. And I'm like, I kind of like you being my friend and not someone who comes to my church. It's nice. But I bet you have people in your life where it would be a really easy invite to just say, hey, I don't know if you're going to celebrate Christmas Eve anywhere. I don't know if you're part of a church right now, but you can come to my church. And at that service, can we show them that we take our Jesus very seriously and we don't take ourselves very seriously at all? Can we model for them what church can be? Can we show them who our Jesus is? Can we use that service to go and tell it? And now here, this is very important to me. I'm not preaching this sermon to get you to invite people to Christmas Eve, okay? I don't care, and I don't think you understand how true this is. I don't care how many people come to the Christmas Eve service. I'm gonna have a good Christmas with my family either way. I'm not trying to get butts in seats I never have. I've never, ever, and some of you know you've been here for all eight years, stood up here and tried to compel you to invite people to grace for the sake of grace. I've never done that. And I never will. But it does occur to me, invite them to Summit's Christmas Eve service if you think I'm full of it. I don't care. Go to a Christmas Eve service with your neighbors. That's not the point here. I'm not trying to fill up our services. But what I am presenting to you is the easiest of opportunities. Is it easier to invite your neighbor, your coworker, a family on your kid's ball team, an associate, whatever? Is it easier to go, hey, I don't know if you wanted to celebrate Christmas Eve in a church but if you do come to mine it's gonna be pretty okay and here's how I know it's gonna be pretty okay the sermons like 12 minutes that day and then it's all songs all right so we know we're in good hands Aaron's got it is it easier to invite them to that or in March? Hey, do you want to come to church with me on Sunday? Yikes. That's a tougher one. I hope you will. I'm just saying, I'm just acknowledging what we all know. So it's never been easier to go tell it than it is this Christmas season. So I hope that you'll consider that as a way to kind of open the door to conversation with some people that you care about. And I hope that maybe you'll leave her thinking about who can I invite to the Christmas Eve service. And again, if you think this is remotely self-serving, take them to Summit. I couldn't care less. I would, I would, listen, I would rather you invite people to Summit's Christmas Eve service and go with them and let them experience church there than I would you come by yourself having never invited anyone. Okay? But if you want to bring them here and let us show them what it's like to worship Jesus together and celebrate who he is, what a wonderful introduction into church. There's never been an easier time or season to go tell it. Now, I don't just want us to go tell it this season. I want us to continue to do it. So three very quick ways because I just realized it's 1056 and I'm going to move very quickly through these. Three very easy ways to be an evangelist. Okay? First, this sounds cheesy but it's true. Wear it. Wear it. Keith, did you wear a hat this morning? Yeah. What is it? Nah. Keck, you, listen, you don't have to spend more than 15 minutes with Keith to know that he's a Steelers fan. All right? Huh? Always. Always. That's right. It's on his car. If you go to his house, it's all over his dumb basement. Well, I don't even think he has a dumb basement anymore. He has like an apartment because he's building a house. But it's all over his stupid apartment. It's on his clothes. It's where he wears it. You go to his office, it's all over the place. It's everywhere. If you experience Keith, you experience the Steelers. And it reminds me of this verse in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 14, that says, We are led in triumphal procession by Christ, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of God. I love that verse because it's this idea that passively from us wafts this knowledge of God passively from, from Keith, unfortunately wafts this love of the Steelers. You just, it just is infectious. He just does. And what if we love Jesus in such a way? What if we wore it? And this is, this is so funny. I wrote this point before I knew I'd be wearing a gray sweatshirt that we're currently selling this morning. We're not commercializing this. I'm not making any money off of it. Actually, I get 5% of every sweatshirt. So please. Wear your gray stuff to the gym. Wear it to the soccer field. Put it in your office. So that when people come in your office, they know this person loves Jesus. Put it in your home. Put verses on your walls so that when they come over to your house, when your neighbors come over, they know passively this person loves Jesus. This family loves Jesus. This home is oriented around Jesus. Make it so that wherever people go in your life, when they encounter you, whether it's in your car with what you're listening to, with what you're wearing to different things, and I'm not actually saying that you should wear a grace logo every day to work. That would be ridiculous. But I think you get my point. Put it out there that if you know me, you know I love my Jesus. Regardless of church, wear it. Make it visible so that people passively know who you are allied to. Second is live it. Live it. In Matthew 5, 16, we find one of the most challenging verses in Scripture which which says, Let your light shine before men so that they might see your good works and so glorify your Father who is in heaven. This is more than passive. This is if someone were to follow you through your day, just by seeing you move in and out of conversation and people, they would see that you are so different, that you are so other, that you are so holy, that they would want to know more about you and glorify your Father who is in heaven. If you want to be an evangelist, spread the good news of Jesus and what he's done for you. Live that out. Be kind to the cashier. Be patient in traffic. Be considerate of the co-worker that no one else likes. Be even-handed in your dealings. Have character in your deals. Be honest in your negotiations. Do not backstab your co-workers. Be forthright even when it's hard. Tell the truth even when it's inconvenient. Be loving to your spouse even when they're being a jerk. And they deserve to be clapped back at. You can talk to Jen about how to do that if you need some examples. Do not yell unnecessarily at your children. Do not lose your temper. Be people of a meek countenance and kind such that others see your good work and so glorify your Father who is in heaven. Live it out. The last way we evangelize is to love it. Do you know why Keith tells everyone about the Steelers? Because he loves the Steelers. And when you love them, it brings him joy. It's a maniacal, twisted joy that's harming to humanity. Nevertheless, it's what compels him. And here's what I would say to you as a challenge. If you find yourself convicted because you're not someone who evangelizes for your Jesus, maybe, maybe it's a love issue. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to soften it. Maybe if you found yourself loving him more, you would tell other people about him more. I know the reason that my buddy tells people about the team he loves is because he loves them so much that it brings him joy when you love them too. And if we don't love Jesus so much that it brings us joy to see other people begin to love him too, then maybe we don't love him enough. And if we want to be evangelists, instead of looking out, what we need to do is look in and ask the Father to cultivate a love for him and what he's done in our hearts, so much so that we are so compelled to go and tell it. So I'm going to invite up Aaron and pray. And we're going to sing Go Tell It on the mountain together. And we're going to mean it. Yeah? Let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for Keith, I guess. Thank you for a Jesus who loves us so well, loves us so much. I pray that we would be so compelled by that love that we would go and tell other people about it. God, there's no easier time of year to spread the good news of your glory to our friends and to the people that we care about so much. So I pray that you would give us the wisdom and the insight and the courage to do just that. And that this season we would invite, we would compel, we would introduce, we would be courageous, and we would engage in conversations that maybe we're fearful of, but we know that we are so compelled by our love for you and our love for them that we want to see them love you. Help us to do that, Father. In Jesus' name, amen.

Good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here, and I'm very excited for the series. I hope that you guys had a good Thanksgiving. For the Rectors, it's a whirlwind. It's six and a half hours to Atlanta on Monday, five hours to Dothan on Wednesday, six hours to Greenville on Friday, and four and a half hours to Raleigh on Saturday, which is 22 hours of travel. So if you see my children and they look a little bit addled, that's why. But they did great and we had a great time and we saw family and I hope that you did too. But now that we're past that, we have arrived at my favorite time of year at Grace. I love this time of year at grace i i love uh getting to celebrate next week uh as mikey said is uh christmas sweater sunday so i hope you'll bring out your best um i've seen some of yours before and i know they're pretty good so maybe you've upgraded but i hope that we'll all have a good sweater to wear for next week my favorite sunday of the year is fami jammy sunday We'll be like them. Which is more pointedly Amo La Civita every year. I'm looking at you, pal. Let's put something on this year, buddy. But I love this season. I love the Christmas series. I love how fun it is. And for me, obviously, we're celebrating Christmas. We're celebrating what that is. We're celebrating the arrival of Christ. But I also, in my head, as I kind of celebrate the end of the year, I celebrate what God has done at Grace. I celebrate who you are and who we are and God's presence here. I celebrate the people who are committed to this place and who love it so much, and all that God has done. So I think it's a perfect time of year to kind of not only celebrate Christmas and what that means and the arrival of Christ, but to also reflect on what God has done in our church and in our church family and look forward to what He's going to do in the future. To that end, we've got a meeting on December the 14th, immediately following the service to update everybody on the building, where we're at, and exactly what it's going to take to get us where we believe we need to go. And I think we're a lot closer than people suspect. So I'm optimistic for that meeting and I'm hopeful that you'll make it a priority to be there. I also know that that's on the same Sunday that we're doing the kids caroling. So there's going to be grandparents and stuff like that here. So to the young families, I would encourage you maybe bring two cars that day and one party can stay behind and attend the meeting and then the rest can go out to eat with grandma and grandpa and then you can can catch up later, because let's be honest, that lunch is overrated, and you probably just want to be here. Anyways. This series, here we go, is it, was, Wassailing, here we go, Wassailing. As Aaron mentioned, it was either Aaron or Mikey, I don't pay much attention. A few years ago, either last fall or fall before last, we did a series called The Songs We Sing. And we looked at the songs that we sing as a church, some of the hymns and praise choruses that we do, and we found them in the Bible. And we said, let's kind of imbue them with more meaning by looking at these songs. And it's a Christmas series that I've always wanted to do. And so this year we're going to do that. We're going to look at a Christmas carol each week and look at how it's imbued with meaning through scripture. We're going to climax this on Christmas Eve, looking at the greatest song that's ever been written, in my opinion, Oh Holy Night. And so I'm very excited to do that, but we've got some good songs along the way. And we have a song that we're focused on this morning that if you were paying attention to the video, you already know what it is. Or if you've looked through the notes to try to see what the fill in the blanks are, you already know what it is. But I'm not going to tell you yet if you haven't done either of those things. The first thing I'm going to do is make the opening point. This is the least expected opening point that I'm going to put on the screen in the history of Grace Raleigh, okay? A few weeks ago, I had a point that said something like, faith is like a Brazilian steakhouse. And Carly, who I send the notes to, who puts them on the bulletin, emailed me back and she said, I can't wait to see what this is about. And then I sent her this week's notes and she said, I never thought you would top Brazilian steakhouse, but I'm about to. Here's the first point of the sermon. Be like Keith Cathcart. Yeah. Where's Keith? Hey, buddy. Don't let him go, Keck. Be like Keith Cathcart. Here's my second point. Sort of. Okay. Now that we're clear. Now listen, before I just dump on him for the rest of the sermon, let's be clear. Keith is a really good friend of mine. I love Keith. I have a policy in my house. I do not pay money to a handyman of any kind until I've gotten permission from Keith. When there is something wrong in my house, I call him and I say, I think I need to call somebody to come fix this. And he will often say to me, if you call somebody to fix that, I will not be your friend anymore. I cannot respect you as a man. Keith has stood on the safe confines of my deck while I was up on my roof with FaceTiming him, showing him some flashing underneath some shingles and he helped me repair it. And we did, we fixed the leak. Did we not? Yeah, we did. So he's a good buddy. He's also the greatest evangelist I've ever met in my life. And this is true. Keith evangelizes like no one I've ever met. He espouses his beliefs more zealously and more effectively than any Christian I've ever known. The problem is he's an evangelist for the Steelers, not Jesus. Although I'm sure he does evangelize for Jesus from time to time. He's an incredibly effective evangelist for the Steelers. As a matter of fact, to prove it to you, I texted him earlier in the week. And I said, hey, I'm not going to tell you why. I just need you to text me pictures of people you've converted to Steelers fans. I just need three or four pictures. Dude sent me 20. 20 pictures. And he said, this is just the beginning. He got so excited about it. He's going down to Mexico to celebrate Christmas, to do a Christmas celebration with our ministry partners there. And he printed up terrible towels that say Feliz Navidad. And he's going to hand them out to 200 children and get them to wave them at once. And he told me it's going to be the greatest moment of my life. Just so you don't think I'm making this up, I wanted to share with you some of the people that Keith has evangelized for the Steelers. So let's take a look, Lynn. This is a young man at our church. He did not grow up in Pittsburgh. He does not care about the Steelers, but now he does. His mom made the mistake of going to Mexico with Keith and the rest of the team. They didn't just go to Mexico together, let's be clear. Sorry, Miel. There was like a whole group of people. They all went together. That's funny. He converted him. This is Patrick. Patrick did not, he's wearing, I don't know, Patrick, are you in the service this morning? Yeah, there he is. He's wearing that jersey. I didn't even tell him to. He didn't even know that this was happening. He's caught the virus, okay? Keith gave him that jersey. He's so proud of himself. Look at that dumb grin on Keith's face. Look at him. He's evangelizing for the Steelers. What's the next one? Is this Chucky? Oh, no. This is a guy. This is a random dude from Home Depot. That's who that is. That is Casey. Casey. Thank you, Keck. Keck is also in Steelers gear. Did you purchase that gear, Keck? Or did Keith? He puts on his hat. Yes, that's a random guy from Home Depot that is now a Steelers fan because of Keith. Who's the next one? Chucky. Chucky is the foreman in Mexico. Now this, I'll give Keith some credit as much as it pains me. Keith has been going to Mexico for darn near 20 years. And he met Chucky when Chucky was in seventh grade and was a volunteer working to get a home for his family. And he has gone through the years and he is now the foreman of the work crews for Faith Ministry, the ministry with which we partner. Every year, Keith goes down and he spends time with Chucky. And every year, he gives Chucky more Steelers crap. He has gotten birth announcements, wedding announcements, engagement announcements. That is like a surrogate son to Keith, and that's a very special person to us here at Grace. So I don't want to make light of it, but also, look at that. He's got all kinds of Steeler stuff. Can I tell you this? He even got me. Here I am. I went, too. I figured if I was gonna be in Pittsburgh, I needed to look the part, so I shaved down to a mustache, which I would say looks awesome. And here's the worst part. Do we have it, Aaron? He got my children. He got them too. But do you know what I did with those towels? Last time we had the hootenanny and we had the grill, the Blackstone needs a towel to clean up the grease I use those just so we know all right that's enough of that Keith is the most effective evangelist I've ever met in my life he loves the Steelers he wants everyone else to love the Steelers and he and it's a point of pride and joy when other people love his team too. And it's harmless and it's fun. But he, as I was thinking about the song this morning, he embodies this song better than anyone I've ever met, which is this, Go Tell It on the Mountain. We know this Christmas carol. Go tell it on the mountain. Go proclaim it. Here's the chorus of the carol. Let's look at it together. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. I love this carol. I thought it was the right place to begin the series. I don't know how you guys do it in your house, but at our house, after Halloween, the first weekend after Halloween, we decorate for Christmas. I know that's crazy. I know. But here's what Jen and I say. There's nothing wrong with a little extra Christmas in the house. We love our living room with lights and a tree and the ambiance. And during the year, we got our TV up on the mantle, you know, like you're supposed to do in 2025. And then bracketing the TV, we have these potted plants that are fake that have like different like plumes coming out of them like you're supposed to. But at Christmas, they're reindeers, and it's cooler. And then instead of just this naked mantle, there's garland with lights on it. And so it's just festive. And then we turn on the gas fire that emits zero heat whatsoever. And it's more cozy in there. So in our house, we decorate for Christmas the first weekend after Halloween and the first school day after Halloween we get in the car and Lily will say, Daddy, can we listen to Christmas carols now? And we do. On the way to school we listen to Christmas carols. We've got a playlist. We've added to it over the years. She has her favorites. I have mine. If you haven't listened to Barbara Streisand's version of Jingle Bells, it's the best in the whole wide world and I love it. I highly recommend. But one of my favorite songs that we listen to in the car together is Go Tell It on the Mountain. It's fun. It's festive. It's energetic. And it really gets across the point of the season. This idea of go be an evangelist. Here's what Keith does for the Steelers. As he goes and he tells it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Everywhere he goes, he's going to tell you about the Steelers. He's going to give you a terrible towel. He's going to give you a jersey that you don't want, that your children are going to wear, and now your host. But he's going to go and he's going to tell. And that's what this song is about. Go tell it on the mountain. Go tell people about Jesus. And this is a fundamental part of our faith that we don't talk about often enough. I'll be the first person to admit that I'm bad at evangelism. I don't do it as often as I should. And before I get into the sermon too far, making a crude analogy that's clumsy, it's far easier to evangelize for your team than it is to evangelize for your Savior. Because there's not a bunch of social emotional baggage wrapped up in your team. Keith doesn't go tell people that they should root for the Steelers and then get the response, I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but the fans of the Steelers are hypocrites and they hurt me. I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but I have existential reasons to believe that the Steelers don't exist. I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but I have this and this and this reason why I just can't do that anymore. You tell someone to root for the Steelers, and they're like, no, I like the Falcons, and you're like, I'm so sorry for you and your life, but I understand. But you tell someone to convert to your Savior, and it becomes a lot more complicated and a lot more deep. And so it's a clumsy comparison. And the point of the story isn't to guilt Keith into sharing Jesus with the same zeal that he shares the Steelers. Although, Keith, maybe. But it's a clumsy comparison if you want to make it one-to-one. Nevertheless, evangelism and going and telling it on the mountain is a fundamental part of what it is to be a Christian. And here's how I know that this is true. I don't know if you've ever thought about the disciples in this way, but I have a cousin. I was just with him over his cousin-in-law, actually. He's an OBGYN, and he had to go through a ton of school to get to practice as a doctor. And the last part of school that you do when you're pursuing the medical field is residency. You go and you follow actual doctors who are licensed. And you that's what the disciples were doing. The disciples were in residency with Jesus. They were being trained by him. They were being prepared for ministry. And this is not the point of the sermon, but just by way of thought exercise, I doubt that you've ever considered, why didn't Jesus, if what Jesus came to do is come and live a perfect life and die a perfect death, why didn't he die on the cross when he was 21? Why didn't he die when he was 18? Why didn't he die when he was 30? Why didn't he just come down here, live a sinless life, die a perfect death, and be our perfect sacrifice, which is what we believe that he was and is? I'll tell you why. Because he wanted to spend the last years of his life training young men in residency to take over the church. To do what he did. And so that's what the disciples were doing. They were in residency learning how to lead what would be known as the church. Because the church didn't exist as an idea before Jesus implanted it into the minds and the practices of the disciples. And when he left, he said, now go and spread the good news to the corners of the earth, to all the nations. Go to the ends of the earth and tell them who I am, baptizing people in my name. Go make disciples in Jerusalem and Judea and all of the ends of the earth. The reason that Jesus didn't just live and die was to train the disciples. You understand? And fundamental to that training was evangelism. It was so fundamental that 30 years after the death of Christ, when Mark and Luke, and Mark wrote the gospel on behalf of Peter, and Luke wrote the gospel to, oh, blessed Theophilus, to explain to this man named Theophilus what was going on, and then to explain to humans for the rest of time what was going on. It was so important to them that they included this story in Mark chapter 6 and in Luke chapter 9. Two of the disciples thought that this part of their training was so important that it needed to be recounted. In Mark chapter 6 and Luke chapter 9, you can look it up if you want to. I'm not going to read the verses. Jesus sent out the disciples two by two. He said, go in pairs, go into the surrounding towns, cast out demons and heal, and tell them the good news of the gospel. Tell them who I am. Tell them what I've done. Tell them what I'm going to do. And we often, those of us who know our Bible, associate that with the end of the story, which is if they don't receive you, shake the dust of that town off of your sandals as you go, which is to say, like, I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore and go. And we like that because that way, if evangelism doesn't work, we don't have to feel bad and whatever. But the point of that story, the point of that recounting, the reason that it's included in the gospels, the reason that Peter and Mark and Luke felt compelled to include that in their narrative and in their recounting of their experience with the Messiah is to say the point is we were told to go and tell other people about Jesus. We were told to go and evangelize. And so it is unavoidable that part of our Christian experience is to tell people about the Jesus that we love. Now listen, I want to be really clear here. If you're new to the faith, if you're questioning the faith, if you're here kicking the tires to see if faith is for you, I'm not preaching to you this morning. This is not for you. I don't want you to feel an ounce of responsibility for the things that I'm about to say. I just would invite you to soak it in and know that this is what we're about. But if you're a Christian, if you're not kicking the tires, if God is your Father and Jesus is your Savior, if you believe that Jesus is who he says he is, did what he said he did, and is going to do what he says he's going to do, then this is for you. And this should compel us. A fundamental part of your life, of your faith, is evangelism. Is to tell people about your Jesus. And I know that this makes us deeply uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. It's an uncomfortable conversation. But that does not negate the fact that it is a biblical imperative, that it was a course requirement for the residency of the disciples, and it is an expectation that Jesus himself places on you to go tell it on the mountain, to go tell it everywhere, to go tell people about the Jesus that you love. And in our culture and in our context, go tell people why you still love him. Go tell people why you stayed in church and they left. Go tell people why you've come back to church after wandering for a while. Go tell people what Jesus has done for you. Go tell people about the sense of peace that he's given you. Christians, go tell people about the sense of worth that he's given your soul. Christians, go tell people about the purpose that he's given you in the waning years of your life. I know many of us are at the point of our life where we're thinking, we're not thinking about a cruel, we're thinking about legacy. What do we leave behind? Go tell people what you want to leave behind and why. Go tell people what you want to build in your building years and why. If you're young, go tell people what you want to do with your life. And why? Go tell people how you want to raise your kids and what you want them to do. And why? Go tell people about your Jesus and why you're sticking with it and why you're still doing it and why you still have faith and why you still bother to get up on a Sunday morning and to do your makeup and to do your hair and to tuck in your shirt and to blouse your sweatshirt, which is something I just learned this morning. Go tell people why you bother to do that instead of sleep in. And don't just keep it to yourself as this personal private thing that's my business and not their business and I don't want to offend anyone. No. Go tell it. Go tell people what Jesus has done for you. If you serve in the community, tell people why you do. If you're kind to someone at the office that other people are not kind to, tell people why you're kind to them. If you pray for your grandchildren, tell people what you hope for your grandchildren and what you pray for them. I think in 2025, this idea of evangelism, it used to be when I was growing up in the 80s, evangelism was like, go tell people the good news. Go tell people about this Jesus. They may have never heard of him before. He forgives their sins. And he omits their shame. He erases it. And he's conquered sin and death so that we don't have to be afraid of him. So that we don't have to be afraid of it. Go tell them the good news. Go tell them that Jesus exists. And it was this idea that you could sit down with a person and be like, let me tell you about the person in this Bible that the whole Bible is about. It's about Jesus. Let me tell you about him and how he erases all of your guilt and shame for all of your life and accepts you for who you are and makes a passage into heaven for you for eternity. And then the idea was that they would hear that and be like, my gosh, I've never heard that before. That's incredible news. I'd like to be a Christian. Is that true now? The people in your life that you know who either don't believe in Jesus or are not actively engaged in faith, they have a reason. They have a reason. And it's a good one. I don't know what it is, but it's a good reason. The people that you know in your life who are atheists, when I was coming up, do you know what I was taught? Atheists are dumb. And if you'll just do a couple easy arguments with them, you'll win, and they'll convert immediately. Have you guys found that to be true? The atheists in your life probably, some of them are dumb, just like some of you are dumb. But most of them are pretty smart. And some of you are pretty smart. Begrudgingly. Evangelism is different in 2025. But I think an interesting way to engage the conversation is to say, here's why I'm still doing what I'm doing. Here's why I'm still here. Serving my God, praising my Jesus, worshiping my Lord. And I think that's an interesting place to start the conversation. But the larger point is, we can't get around the fact that evangelism is an essential part of Christian life. And I bring that up because Christmas is the perfect time to go tell it. Christmas is the perfect time to go tell it. Our whole world rallies around this holiday, right? Our whole world commercializes this holiday. This is when all the holiday stuff starts. This is when they start telling you to buy presents. This is when Lexus every year comes out with the most ridiculous ad campaign I've ever seen with a red bow on a $75,000 SUV as a Christmas present. Listen, I've often said I don't believe in reincarnation, but if it's true, I want to come back as a member of a family that gives away Lexuses at Christmas. And if any of you are giving Lexuses as Christmas gifts, consider the building campaign. It could help. Our whole culture rallies around this holiday. We commercialize it and we make it about gifts and all the things and family and decorations and lights and we celebrate. But Christians, we hold the truth of it. I am not going to say that Jesus is the reason for this season. I will not preach that. Although he is. We hold the truth of what this season is about. It's about Jesus. It's about his arrival. When I preach on Christmas Eve, it's going to be the phrase, long lay the world in sin and error pining until he appeared and the soul felt its worth. Oh, that's the most compelling line ever written. That's what Christmas is about. It gives us a sense of worth and purpose and hope and joy. And we know that better than anyone around us who doesn't love Jesus and who isn't spiritually engaged. So Christmas is the easiest and best time of year to go tell it. And let me tell you an easy way, the easiest possible way to go tell it and to evangelize your friends. This is going to sound self-serving, but I'm going to explain it. The easiest, I can't think of an easier invite than a Christmas Eve service. Can you? How easy is it? I've got some friends. I'm not setting myself up as moral exemplar. I'm a terrible evangelist. But one thing I have done in my life is Lily was a part of a soccer team for years. My daughter Lily, she's nine. She'll be 10 in January, which is nuts. And I coach. I have a soccer background and I coach. And I got to be friends with the coach and her husband, Heidi and Trey, and their daughters, Josie and Hannah. And Lily decided to quit. And I was like, I like this community. I'm going to keep coaching. And I'm also convicted that I asked you guys to volunteer. This is an organization that runs on volunteers. And so you guys give up an extra day to volunteer here. And I get paid to be here. And I don't volunteer anywhere else. So I thought maybe I should practice what I preach and volunteer somewhere. So I coach. So I kept going. And people are like, you're just a creepy guy coaching nine-year-old girls, and your daughter's not on the team. I'm like, yeah, it's cool. Don't worry about it. But I volunteered, and I enjoy that relationship with them. And there's another coach on the team, a guy named Vishal, who's from Pakistan. And I enjoy him too. And I've developed a relationship with him such that I told him when I get back from Thanksgiving, he actually said, let's get drinks or let's get wings or something like that. And so I'm going to go out and spend some time with what we call Coach V. And I was actually in the lead up to this, I realized I need to invite Heidi and Trey to the Christmas Eve service. And here's why this is such an easy invite. They're people of faith, but they don't go to a church. It's marginal for them. But they probably want to celebrate Christmas Eve somewhere with their family. There's a chance they want to go to church somewhere. So why not just invite them to Grace? And it's actually funny, we've joked about them coming to Grace and they said, we kind of like you being our friend and not our pastor. And I'm like, I kind of like you being my friend and not someone who comes to my church. It's nice. But I bet you have people in your life where it would be a really easy invite to just say, hey, I don't know if you're going to celebrate Christmas Eve anywhere. I don't know if you're part of a church right now, but you can come to my church. And at that service, can we show them that we take our Jesus very seriously and we don't take ourselves very seriously at all? Can we model for them what church can be? Can we show them who our Jesus is? Can we use that service to go and tell it? And now here, this is very important to me. I'm not preaching this sermon to get you to invite people to Christmas Eve, okay? I don't care, and I don't think you understand how true this is. I don't care how many people come to the Christmas Eve service. I'm gonna have a good Christmas with my family either way. I'm not trying to get butts in seats I never have. I've never, ever, and some of you know you've been here for all eight years, stood up here and tried to compel you to invite people to grace for the sake of grace. I've never done that. And I never will. But it does occur to me, invite them to Summit's Christmas Eve service if you think I'm full of it. I don't care. Go to a Christmas Eve service with your neighbors. That's not the point here. I'm not trying to fill up our services. But what I am presenting to you is the easiest of opportunities. Is it easier to invite your neighbor, your coworker, a family on your kid's ball team, an associate, whatever? Is it easier to go, hey, I don't know if you wanted to celebrate Christmas Eve in a church but if you do come to mine it's gonna be pretty okay and here's how I know it's gonna be pretty okay the sermons like 12 minutes that day and then it's all songs all right so we know we're in good hands Aaron's got it is it easier to invite them to that or in March? Hey, do you want to come to church with me on Sunday? Yikes. That's a tougher one. I hope you will. I'm just saying, I'm just acknowledging what we all know. So it's never been easier to go tell it than it is this Christmas season. So I hope that you'll consider that as a way to kind of open the door to conversation with some people that you care about. And I hope that maybe you'll leave her thinking about who can I invite to the Christmas Eve service. And again, if you think this is remotely self-serving, take them to Summit. I couldn't care less. I would, I would, listen, I would rather you invite people to Summit's Christmas Eve service and go with them and let them experience church there than I would you come by yourself having never invited anyone. Okay? But if you want to bring them here and let us show them what it's like to worship Jesus together and celebrate who he is, what a wonderful introduction into church. There's never been an easier time or season to go tell it. Now, I don't just want us to go tell it this season. I want us to continue to do it. So three very quick ways because I just realized it's 1056 and I'm going to move very quickly through these. Three very easy ways to be an evangelist. Okay? First, this sounds cheesy but it's true. Wear it. Wear it. Keith, did you wear a hat this morning? Yeah. What is it? Nah. Keck, you, listen, you don't have to spend more than 15 minutes with Keith to know that he's a Steelers fan. All right? Huh? Always. Always. That's right. It's on his car. If you go to his house, it's all over his dumb basement. Well, I don't even think he has a dumb basement anymore. He has like an apartment because he's building a house. But it's all over his stupid apartment. It's on his clothes. It's where he wears it. You go to his office, it's all over the place. It's everywhere. If you experience Keith, you experience the Steelers. And it reminds me of this verse in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 14, that says, We are led in triumphal procession by Christ, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of God. I love that verse because it's this idea that passively from us wafts this knowledge of God passively from, from Keith, unfortunately wafts this love of the Steelers. You just, it just is infectious. He just does. And what if we love Jesus in such a way? What if we wore it? And this is, this is so funny. I wrote this point before I knew I'd be wearing a gray sweatshirt that we're currently selling this morning. We're not commercializing this. I'm not making any money off of it. Actually, I get 5% of every sweatshirt. So please. Wear your gray stuff to the gym. Wear it to the soccer field. Put it in your office. So that when people come in your office, they know this person loves Jesus. Put it in your home. Put verses on your walls so that when they come over to your house, when your neighbors come over, they know passively this person loves Jesus. This family loves Jesus. This home is oriented around Jesus. Make it so that wherever people go in your life, when they encounter you, whether it's in your car with what you're listening to, with what you're wearing to different things, and I'm not actually saying that you should wear a grace logo every day to work. That would be ridiculous. But I think you get my point. Put it out there that if you know me, you know I love my Jesus. Regardless of church, wear it. Make it visible so that people passively know who you are allied to. Second is live it. Live it. In Matthew 5, 16, we find one of the most challenging verses in Scripture which which says, Let your light shine before men so that they might see your good works and so glorify your Father who is in heaven. This is more than passive. This is if someone were to follow you through your day, just by seeing you move in and out of conversation and people, they would see that you are so different, that you are so other, that you are so holy, that they would want to know more about you and glorify your Father who is in heaven. If you want to be an evangelist, spread the good news of Jesus and what he's done for you. Live that out. Be kind to the cashier. Be patient in traffic. Be considerate of the co-worker that no one else likes. Be even-handed in your dealings. Have character in your deals. Be honest in your negotiations. Do not backstab your co-workers. Be forthright even when it's hard. Tell the truth even when it's inconvenient. Be loving to your spouse even when they're being a jerk. And they deserve to be clapped back at. You can talk to Jen about how to do that if you need some examples. Do not yell unnecessarily at your children. Do not lose your temper. Be people of a meek countenance and kind such that others see your good work and so glorify your Father who is in heaven. Live it out. The last way we evangelize is to love it. Do you know why Keith tells everyone about the Steelers? Because he loves the Steelers. And when you love them, it brings him joy. It's a maniacal, twisted joy that's harming to humanity. Nevertheless, it's what compels him. And here's what I would say to you as a challenge. If you find yourself convicted because you're not someone who evangelizes for your Jesus, maybe, maybe it's a love issue. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to soften it. Maybe if you found yourself loving him more, you would tell other people about him more. I know the reason that my buddy tells people about the team he loves is because he loves them so much that it brings him joy when you love them too. And if we don't love Jesus so much that it brings us joy to see other people begin to love him too, then maybe we don't love him enough. And if we want to be evangelists, instead of looking out, what we need to do is look in and ask the Father to cultivate a love for him and what he's done in our hearts, so much so that we are so compelled to go and tell it. So I'm going to invite up Aaron and pray. And we're going to sing Go Tell It on the mountain together. And we're going to mean it. Yeah? Let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for Keith, I guess. Thank you for a Jesus who loves us so well, loves us so much. I pray that we would be so compelled by that love that we would go and tell other people about it. God, there's no easier time of year to spread the good news of your glory to our friends and to the people that we care about so much. So I pray that you would give us the wisdom and the insight and the courage to do just that. And that this season we would invite, we would compel, we would introduce, we would be courageous, and we would engage in conversations that maybe we're fearful of, but we know that we are so compelled by our love for you and our love for them that we want to see them love you. Help us to do that, Father. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right. Well, good morning, everybody. It's good to see everybody's Christmas sweaters. Steve, it's nice to see your festive Christmas blazer. Thank you. This morning. If you don't understand what's happening on my sweater, that's on you. All right. This is from the movie Christmas Vacation. Chevy Chase is up hanging lights and he pulls the gutter and a shard of ice shoots into their obnoxious neighbor's room, shattering the window and the stereo system. And when they get home, Julia Louise Dreyfuss' character says what's on Jen's sweater, which is why is the carpet wet, Todd, and to which he responds disgustedly, I don't know, Margo. So that's what this is. Just so you know, if you're looking at my sweater going, that doesn't make any sense to me, that's where it comes from, okay? And I just wish that you had as much joy in your clothes as I do in mine. This week we continue, as Haley just mentioned, which it is Christmas Sweater Sunday. It's not Christmas Overall Sunday. I don't know what you're doing, but it is. What was it, Christmas Knits, if that's not your love language? It is yours. So, yeah, very good. The series is called Here We Go, A Wassailing, and we're looking at Christmas songs that we sing, and we're seeking to understand them in a deeper way so that when we sing them at Christmas, hopefully they're imbued with greater meaning. As we approach this one, I have a sensibility or a standard in my life. I'm almost always consuming two books. I'm consuming one on the app Audible, which is a wonderful app, and that's where I consume nonfiction. Biography, sociology, often history, political stuff, that's where I do my learning because it's hard to sit down and read those books, at least for me. And then I try to always be reading a book in addition to the book that I'm listening to, and I read fiction. But the standard for me in the fiction that I read is I almost exclusively read classics because I kind of think, and I know that all of this sounds pretentious. I'm talking to you about how much I read and what I read and that I only read the classics and blah, blah, blah. Fine. I would assume that if you're not a reader, there is this belief amongst readers that we are somehow superior to non-readers. But what I would argue is that we just have more free time than you. You're busier than we are, and so we fill it with reading. Regardless, I read classics, because here's my thought. If it's been in print for over 50 years, then that author had something to say beyond just the story that is written. So if it's been around for a long time, I'm more apt to read it because I feel like it was written with purpose. And I feel like what is contained in those pages moves beyond just the story. And what I've found over and over and over again is that it really offers profound insight into the human spirit and human psyche. And it has a good commentary on life. And here's what's wild to me about the classics when you read them, is they were written in the mid-1800s, but the dynamics of human life persist today and are absolutely relatable. And so in literature, I have a proclivity for the classics because there's a reason that they've kind of billowed down through the centuries. And so this morning, I bring that up because this morning we arrive at maybe the most famous Christmas carol there is outside of Jingle Bells. And Jingle Bells means nothing. So we're not going to talk about that. But the one that does mean something is this Christmas carol, Joy to the World, that we sang at the beginning of the service. It was written by a pastor named Isaac Watts in the early 1700s. So the words of joy to the world that we sing every year are over 300 years old. It is very much a classic. And so to honor the classic this morning, as we focus ourselves on the songs that we sing at Christmas time, I want to go through this song, what's called exegetically. To preach exegetically is to go through a passage and just verse by verse, what does it mean, what does it mean, what does it mean? And so I want to take that practice and apply it to the song of joy to the world and go through it exegetically and understand what we're singing because I believe that there's something profound in each verse that may pass us by as we just sing it every year and we repeat with sounding joy and all the things. It's going to be really, really hard, I'm just saying this right now, for me to not sing parts of this song to you as I preach. I've been in sermons before where the pastor would just like pause and start singing awkwardly. And even if they have a good voice, you're still like, what are you doing, dude? So I'm going to really try hard not to sing to you this morning, but I don't know what's going to come out. I'm flying by the seat of my pants. So let's look at this wonderful Christmas carol written by Isaac Watts that we sing every year, and let's seek a greater understanding of what's going on when we sing it. Here's the first verse. Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. Let every heart. Where's Gibson? Gibby. In the original, in my notes, there's an apostrophe and the E, the second E in every. And one of the great things about our Christian heritage is that we apostrophize words that don't make any sense. And you've robbed us from this experience. I appreciate that you kept heaven, but every. Come on, man. Aren't you from Kentucky? Please don't fix it. Let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing. So the first thing we see, he is actually going to go fix this as I preach to you. Let's just give him time. It's my fault. I made a big deal of it. There we go. Thank you. Now we've had the full experience, Gibberoo. Thanks, pal. The first thing that I want to point out is how it starts. Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king. Every Easter, rather, I share with you this quote, and I'll share it again here as we approach Christmas. It's an Easter quote, but it's apropos today. It's from John Paul II, one of the great popes of the Catholic Church. And he said, For we do not give way to despair, for we are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. And what he means is we serve a Savior that has conquered sin and death. We serve a Savior that gives us joy in whom we can rest easy. And so when it starts off, it's appropriately so. Joy to the world, the Lord has come. This person, this Messiah, this entity that will defeat sin and death has come. And so we can experience joy. And there should be no more joyful people in the Christmas season than Christians because we understand fully what it is for and what it is about. And make no mistake, we get into the hustle and the bustle of the Christmas season, but let us not forget that Jesus is why we are here, and he gives us joy. To the next point, in here it says, let every heart prepare him room at my last church my pastor a guy named Jonathan about every other year if not annually would preach the same Christmas message and I think that the point of it was an excellent one. We see it in Luke chapter 2, verses 6 and 7. Let's read this together. While they were there, there came a time for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in clothes and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them. You've probably heard it. There was no room for them in the inn. And it's this idea that Joseph and Mary went down not for what they knew to be Christmas, but what we knew to be Christmas. Also probably in September, not in December, but that's neither here nor there. But they went down for the census and gave birth to Jesus. And they gave birth to Jesus in the manger because there was no room for them in the inn. That's the famous line. And so my pastor used to say in the Christmas season, let us make room for Jesus in our hearts. Let us not be like the innkeeper. And here's why that's tricky. This season has so many things that demand our time and our attention, does it not? Just yesterday, I was talking to Jen. What do you think we should get for John? I bought him this and this and this. We have this much money left. What do you think we should get for him? And so we're sitting there using our day talking about what we should get for our four-year-old who's eventually going to throw away everything that he gets in favor of other things that he gets when he's nine, which he will then throw away as well. It's an endless cycle. And she also shared with me that she was trying to buy some pajamas for Fammy Jammy Sunday because we got a match. And it's difficult to find. I'm just going to be really real with you guys. It's difficult to find pajamas I can preach in, okay? We would all be uncomfortable with the pants situation and all of the pajamas coming from Amazon. We don't want that. So it's tricky. And she's like, I've spent two and a half hours of my life trying to buy pajamas for us for this stupid thing at your stupid church. That's a loose paraphrase. She didn't say that. We have parties to go to. We have gifts to buy. On Christmas Eve, I've got to preach a sermon. You've got to come to a service. The band has to play music. You've got family things you're thinking about. You've got gifts to wrap. Santa has to sit in the living room and assemble things for Christmas morning. We have office parties to go to. We have friend parties to go to. We have regular gifts that we're getting, and then we have to think of the hilarious things to get for the dirty Santa party that we're going to that's going to be really funny. We have all kinds of things to think about in this Christmas season. And what happens so easily is that all of those different things that intrude upon our calendar and our schedule and our conscience invade the space that belongs to Christ and causes us to put him out of this Christmas season. For us to deprioritize him during the season that is meant more than any other to celebrate him and prioritize him. And so when we sing joy to the world, the Lord has come, let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room. Reminds us if we let it. This is a busy season. There are lots of things being demanded of us. But the most important thing is to celebrate my Jesus. And I'll tell you this now more than ever. You've heard me, if you've been here any length of time, you've heard me say this a hundred times. There is no greater habit that anyone can develop than to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in God's presence through prayer. At no point in the year is that more important than the Christmas season. So let joy to the world encourage you to do that. Wake up early tomorrow. I promise you, I promise you, if you wake up 30 minutes earlier than you normally do tomorrow, and you spend the first 10 minutes becoming cognizant and making coffee, and the latter 20 minutes reading and praying, that will be a better invested half hour than whatever you were going to gain by sleeping for that additional time. Let this season be a season that pushes you back to Christ as you prepare room in your hearts for him. The second verse. Joy to the earth. The Savior reigns. And that says, let men their songs employ. The original version, and I think this is important, we'll get back to it, says, our mortal songs employ. And then it says, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy. Andrew, if you can leave that up there. Here's why I think it's important, the language that is used in the original line from 300 years ago, where it says, our immortal songs employ. Now, we don't sing that. That doesn't make any sense to us. That's not vernacular that we would use. Let men their songs employ seems to get the job done. But here's the deal with mortal. Mortal admits he is immortal. I am mortal. I am less than. It's a declaration of the beginning of the Bible where it says, in the beginning God created, establishing this fundamental relationship that he is the creator and I am the created. So when we say our mortal songs employ, what we're admitting is that we're not enough. This is the best we can do. The best we can do is sing to you with a pure heart and invite you in. It's not just let men their songs employ because that doesn't have the same bite that mortal does. Our mortal songs employ because we are insufficient and this is all that we can give. So when we sing at the end of my sermon, we will sing joy to the world again, and we will sing let men their songs employ, but I want your brain to go to mortal, understanding God, I am insufficient. You are God. I am not. I am mortal. You are immortal. By your love and by your grace and by your goodness and by your sacrifice and by the arrival that we are celebrating in this season, we become immortal from your love. But right now, as I sit in this seat, as I stand in that space, my songs are mortal. And I love you for making me immortal. Let men their songs employ. And then, these great lines, while fields and Jesus says in Luke chapter 19, verses 39 through again. There was a season in my life when I was quote unquote rugged. I went to REI. I shopped at the scratch and dent sales. I owned, listen, some of you will understand this. I'm looking at you, Jacob Farmer. I owned Chacos in 1999, pal. Do you understand? Like, I was OG on the Chacos. And if you don't know what Chacos are, you're not cool. And I would go hiking. I remember I would go on the Appalachian Trail. I went one time. It was February. It was freezing. I made the mistake in getting into my tent of knocking over my boot. And when I woke up the next day, I had to peel it off the ground because it was frozen to the ground ground and it was thawing out on my sock as we would walk that day. I remember one time we forgot water and I was mixing dry oatmeal, this is true, with my spit for sustenance until we could find a brook and a pot that we could boil water in so that we wouldn't die. I used to go hiking. I have not done that for years. But when I did, and when I would be at the top of a mountain or have an incredible view, and I've had this opportunity, God's been good to me all over the place. I remember I would feel the presence of God in those places. I remember there was one time in particular when I was in Quito, Ecuador. And we went out to this camp, this youth camp in the rainforest. And we had the opportunity to hike up the mountain. And so we walked for 60 or 90 minutes up this mountain at very high altitude, like 11,000 feet. It was a hard hike. And we got to the top. And as we got to the top of this mountain, I look around and there's mountains all around us. And this cloud moves in over us, literally, and settles into the valley from whence we came. And we walked down the trail, into the clouds, into the rainstorm that it created by moving over the mountain. And I remember in that space being awed at the glory of God. And if you're a hiker, and if you're a nature person, and you're a person of spirituality, I think it's undeniable that when you're in those places, you see the glory of God. You see his goodness. You see the wonders of his love. And when I'm in those places, I feel closer to him. I marvel at him. And so Jesus says, if we don't proclaim his praise, the rocks will cry out themselves. And if you're a person who's been out in nature and is moved by that, if you've been to the Grand Canyon as I have. You've seen the rocks cry out. You know that's true experientially. And so what praise is. Singing to God. Is an invitation. To participate. In what's already happening. Do you understand? It's not on you to praise God. It's not on you to proclaim His name. It's not on you to proclaim His glory and His goodness. And it's not as if we don't do it at grace this morning that it simply won't happen. No. all of creation is proclaiming the glory of the King and of the Creator. Romans 1 says that God has written Himself into nature so that we can see it and that no man is without excuse. Walk outside and God has written His glory in the sky so when we sing, we are not initiating something that's not happening. We are participating in something that's been going on for eons and ages. We're simply joining into the chorus of creation and proclaiming his name. So when we say that line, repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, we are acknowledging that we are repeating the joy and the glory and the goodness and the praise that's going on outside of these walls all day, every day, in ways that we cannot comprehend. Do you get it? When we sing joy to the world, the Lord has come. When we sing repeat the sounding joy, are acknowledging. We're not initiating this. We're echoing in with creation, with what's been happening for thousands of years without us. Now the third verse. The third verse might be my favorite. No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. And listen, I know that's a weird one to be my favorite. But I don't know how many years you've sang the song or you've heard it sung. And we get to that last line, far as, far as the curse is found. And then we sing it again. That's as close as I'm going to get to singing this one. And we just sing it. Thank you for your clapping. We just sing it because those are the lyrics. And it's like, it's almost comical because it's just like, happy joy to the world. You know, this is a happy song. And then we get to the third verse. And even this week, I went to Gibby once I was writing the sermon and I was like, hey dude, are we going to do the third verse? And he was like, no, that one's weird. And I was like, oh, can we do it? And I don't, you guys don't know how much trust I put in him. I never, ever, do I ever tell you to sing a song or do a thing? He's not, he's shaking his head no, because I paid him. But no, I never like, hey dude, we have to do this here, we have to do this song last, so I need you to sing this. I never give him instructions like that. But this week I was like, I need you to find a way to do the third verse. Because we get to that place where we just sing far as far as the curse is found. And I think we just sing it, but we don't think about it. And we might not even understand it. So let's understand it. Genesis chapter 3 verses 17 through 19 say this. To Adam he said, because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree, a fundamental sin of men. Just saying. I'm done listening to you, Jen. Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. Because Eve ate of the apple, and because Adam listened to his wife, because he sinned too, there was a curse. And the curse was that there would be great pain and childbearing. And the curse for all of mankind was that now you have to work for your food. And it will be hard labor. There will be thorns and thistles that make it challenging. Do you realize that Adam and Eve were birthed into an all-inclusive resort? It was just, that's how they existed. Have you ever been to one of those? You just, there's just drinks in your room. There's just water in your refrigerator. And then you drink the water and you come back from going to the pool and there's more water in there. And then you go wherever you want to go for lunch. It's mediocre, but it's there and free. And then you go to dinner wherever you, there's no work involved. You're just reading and relaxing all day. That's what Adam and Eve were born into, but they sinned. They got that fundamental relationship wrong. God is the creator. We is the created. The serpent spoke into Eve's ear and said, you don't have to be like that. You can be like this. You can be as the creator and know what right from wrong. And so they chose to throw off the auspices of the original agreed upon relationship where God is the creator and we are the created. And they said, no, we want to be like the created. And so they inherited the curse. And the curse is that we have to work hard for our food. We have to labor. There are thorns and thistles. And if you want to read more deeply into it, the curse, more pointedly, is cancer. Cancer did not exist in the Garden of Eden. The curse is disabilities. Disabilities didn't exist in the Garden of Eden. The curse is anxiety and depression. The curse is divorce. The curse is abuse. The curse is that hurt people hurt people. The curse is loneliness. Do you understand? The curse is hurt and tragedy and pain. And one of my favorite verses that I bring up all the time and I preach it at every funeral I ever do is in Revelation chapter 20, chapter 21, where it says, at the end of days, God will be with his people and his people will be with their God and there will be no more weeping and no more crying and no more pain anymore for the former things, the curse have passed away. And so what this verse proclaims is it acknowledges that the curse is worldwide. But it says, That's the curse. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. He comes to expunge all of those things forever to make all the right things wrong and the sad things untrue. So when we sing the third verse of joy to the world, let us acknowledge that we know what the curse is and we know it's a result of sin and we know all the things are wrapped up in the curse. But when Jesus comes back one day and Christmas celebrates and acknowledges the fact that Jesus will come back and that he does keep his promises because God sent him and we acknowledge his reception and we look forward to his return. And as far as that curse is found, his blessings will flow and expunge. So we can sing that verse impugned with greater meaning when we understand the curse and we understand its healing. I didn't mean to rhyme those last four lines, but that was all right. Fourth verse. This one's great. He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love. I think this is an incredibly poignant and appropriate verse for us now in our current political climate. I hesitated to make this parallel because I truly believe that the things we talked about in each of the first three verses are meaningful and impactful or I would not have wasted your time with them. And I'm afraid that when I say what I'm about to say that we're going to lose the rest of it for this point. So please let's not do that. Let's just be grownups. But here's what I know about this room. There was an election in 2024. And some people in this room voted conservatively, believing that that candidate was most aligned with their values, and some people in this room voted liberally, believing that that candidate best aligned with their values. Some people didn't vote at all because there was no one that was representative of their values, and some people didn't vote at all because they're bad citizens. Well, I would say I'm just kidding, but I'm not. But we all had different reasons for the choices that we made that November. But here's what I know is part of everyone's reasoning. This candidate is not perfect, but they align with my values in this way, so I'm going to vote for them, and I'm going to overlook the shortcomings that they have as a person in their character. Okay? I don't think anyone here thinks that they voted for someone who was perfect in every way and was the ideal leader in every way. And I think as I trace back through my life, I'm 44, I've seen a lot of presidents. And I've seen a lot of elections. And you have too. And I don't think there's ever been a single time in your life when you voted or your parents voted and who they were voting for they thought was moral exemplar, ideal human on the planet, we have to make no exceptions for their character or their morality or their policies, but they're enough in line with me that I'm going to vote for them. Yeah? Jesus, Isaiah tells us, is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And Revelation tells us this in Revelation 19, one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. On his robe and on his thigh, he has this name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. So in Revelation 19, there is this picture of Jesus crashing out of the sky. I've said dozens of times, if not hundreds of times in this place, that to be a Christian is to believe that Jesus is who he says he is. He's the son of God and divine. He did what he said he did. He died and he raised again on the third day. And he's going to do what he says he's going to do, which is Revelation 19. One day he's going to come crashing through the clouds and he's going to reclaim creation for his father and for himself. And he'll be riding on a horse and on his thigh will be tattooed, will be emblazoned, righteous and true. And he's going to make all the wrong things right and all the sad things untrue. And he is going to rescue his creation. And then he will sit on his throne as king of kings and lord of lords. And he is one that no matter how we voted in the past, we would vote for him. And we would not have to make equivocations for him. I don't agree with some of his policies. Well, then you're wrong, buddy. We wouldn't have to make equivocations for his morality. One day he will lead. One day he will sit on the rightful throne of the universe. And when that day comes, for the rest of our days, we will follow him, resting easy in his leadership, trusting in his wisdom, finding peace in his sovereignty, and finding joy in worshiping him and him alone. He will be the perfect king of kings. And he will sit on the throne of the universe. And verse 4 proclaims that. He rules the world with truth and grace and he makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and the wonders of his love. So I'm going to pray. And as I pray, the band's going to come back up. And we're going to sing joy to the world again. And if you don't mean it a little bit more than you did when we sang it at the start, well, I'm just a bad preacher. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your servant Isaac Watts who gave us the gift of this song. Thank you for how much meaning it has and how rich it is. Lord, your son's arrival brings joy to the whole world. It gives us a reason to praise and to sing. It gives us a reason to be happy and to be hopeful. So God, I pray that as we sing here in a minute, that we would remember what these words mean. That we would put meaning and passion behind them as we declare and proclaim your son. And we claim the joy of what this season is. Help us sing with meaning, God, and help us sing to you. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right. Well, good morning, everybody. It's good to see everybody's Christmas sweaters. Steve, it's nice to see your festive Christmas blazer. Thank you. This morning. If you don't understand what's happening on my sweater, that's on you. All right. This is from the movie Christmas Vacation. Chevy Chase is up hanging lights and he pulls the gutter and a shard of ice shoots into their obnoxious neighbor's room, shattering the window and the stereo system. And when they get home, Julia Louise Dreyfuss' character says what's on Jen's sweater, which is why is the carpet wet, Todd, and to which he responds disgustedly, I don't know, Margo. So that's what this is. Just so you know, if you're looking at my sweater going, that doesn't make any sense to me, that's where it comes from, okay? And I just wish that you had as much joy in your clothes as I do in mine. This week we continue, as Haley just mentioned, which it is Christmas Sweater Sunday. It's not Christmas Overall Sunday. I don't know what you're doing, but it is. What was it, Christmas Knits, if that's not your love language? It is yours. So, yeah, very good. The series is called Here We Go, A Wassailing, and we're looking at Christmas songs that we sing, and we're seeking to understand them in a deeper way so that when we sing them at Christmas, hopefully they're imbued with greater meaning. As we approach this one, I have a sensibility or a standard in my life. I'm almost always consuming two books. I'm consuming one on the app Audible, which is a wonderful app, and that's where I consume nonfiction. Biography, sociology, often history, political stuff, that's where I do my learning because it's hard to sit down and read those books, at least for me. And then I try to always be reading a book in addition to the book that I'm listening to, and I read fiction. But the standard for me in the fiction that I read is I almost exclusively read classics because I kind of think, and I know that all of this sounds pretentious. I'm talking to you about how much I read and what I read and that I only read the classics and blah, blah, blah. Fine. I would assume that if you're not a reader, there is this belief amongst readers that we are somehow superior to non-readers. But what I would argue is that we just have more free time than you. You're busier than we are, and so we fill it with reading. Regardless, I read classics, because here's my thought. If it's been in print for over 50 years, then that author had something to say beyond just the story that is written. So if it's been around for a long time, I'm more apt to read it because I feel like it was written with purpose. And I feel like what is contained in those pages moves beyond just the story. And what I've found over and over and over again is that it really offers profound insight into the human spirit and human psyche. And it has a good commentary on life. And here's what's wild to me about the classics when you read them, is they were written in the mid-1800s, but the dynamics of human life persist today and are absolutely relatable. And so in literature, I have a proclivity for the classics because there's a reason that they've kind of billowed down through the centuries. And so this morning, I bring that up because this morning we arrive at maybe the most famous Christmas carol there is outside of Jingle Bells. And Jingle Bells means nothing. So we're not going to talk about that. But the one that does mean something is this Christmas carol, Joy to the World, that we sang at the beginning of the service. It was written by a pastor named Isaac Watts in the early 1700s. So the words of joy to the world that we sing every year are over 300 years old. It is very much a classic. And so to honor the classic this morning, as we focus ourselves on the songs that we sing at Christmas time, I want to go through this song, what's called exegetically. To preach exegetically is to go through a passage and just verse by verse, what does it mean, what does it mean, what does it mean? And so I want to take that practice and apply it to the song of joy to the world and go through it exegetically and understand what we're singing because I believe that there's something profound in each verse that may pass us by as we just sing it every year and we repeat with sounding joy and all the things. It's going to be really, really hard, I'm just saying this right now, for me to not sing parts of this song to you as I preach. I've been in sermons before where the pastor would just like pause and start singing awkwardly. And even if they have a good voice, you're still like, what are you doing, dude? So I'm going to really try hard not to sing to you this morning, but I don't know what's going to come out. I'm flying by the seat of my pants. So let's look at this wonderful Christmas carol written by Isaac Watts that we sing every year, and let's seek a greater understanding of what's going on when we sing it. Here's the first verse. Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. Let every heart. Where's Gibson? Gibby. In the original, in my notes, there's an apostrophe and the E, the second E in every. And one of the great things about our Christian heritage is that we apostrophize words that don't make any sense. And you've robbed us from this experience. I appreciate that you kept heaven, but every. Come on, man. Aren't you from Kentucky? Please don't fix it. Let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing. So the first thing we see, he is actually going to go fix this as I preach to you. Let's just give him time. It's my fault. I made a big deal of it. There we go. Thank you. Now we've had the full experience, Gibberoo. Thanks, pal. The first thing that I want to point out is how it starts. Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king. Every Easter, rather, I share with you this quote, and I'll share it again here as we approach Christmas. It's an Easter quote, but it's apropos today. It's from John Paul II, one of the great popes of the Catholic Church. And he said, For we do not give way to despair, for we are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. And what he means is we serve a Savior that has conquered sin and death. We serve a Savior that gives us joy in whom we can rest easy. And so when it starts off, it's appropriately so. Joy to the world, the Lord has come. This person, this Messiah, this entity that will defeat sin and death has come. And so we can experience joy. And there should be no more joyful people in the Christmas season than Christians because we understand fully what it is for and what it is about. And make no mistake, we get into the hustle and the bustle of the Christmas season, but let us not forget that Jesus is why we are here, and he gives us joy. To the next point, in here it says, let every heart prepare him room at my last church my pastor a guy named Jonathan about every other year if not annually would preach the same Christmas message and I think that the point of it was an excellent one. We see it in Luke chapter 2, verses 6 and 7. Let's read this together. While they were there, there came a time for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in clothes and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them. You've probably heard it. There was no room for them in the inn. And it's this idea that Joseph and Mary went down not for what they knew to be Christmas, but what we knew to be Christmas. Also probably in September, not in December, but that's neither here nor there. But they went down for the census and gave birth to Jesus. And they gave birth to Jesus in the manger because there was no room for them in the inn. That's the famous line. And so my pastor used to say in the Christmas season, let us make room for Jesus in our hearts. Let us not be like the innkeeper. And here's why that's tricky. This season has so many things that demand our time and our attention, does it not? Just yesterday, I was talking to Jen. What do you think we should get for John? I bought him this and this and this. We have this much money left. What do you think we should get for him? And so we're sitting there using our day talking about what we should get for our four-year-old who's eventually going to throw away everything that he gets in favor of other things that he gets when he's nine, which he will then throw away as well. It's an endless cycle. And she also shared with me that she was trying to buy some pajamas for Fammy Jammy Sunday because we got a match. And it's difficult to find. I'm just going to be really real with you guys. It's difficult to find pajamas I can preach in, okay? We would all be uncomfortable with the pants situation and all of the pajamas coming from Amazon. We don't want that. So it's tricky. And she's like, I've spent two and a half hours of my life trying to buy pajamas for us for this stupid thing at your stupid church. That's a loose paraphrase. She didn't say that. We have parties to go to. We have gifts to buy. On Christmas Eve, I've got to preach a sermon. You've got to come to a service. The band has to play music. You've got family things you're thinking about. You've got gifts to wrap. Santa has to sit in the living room and assemble things for Christmas morning. We have office parties to go to. We have friend parties to go to. We have regular gifts that we're getting, and then we have to think of the hilarious things to get for the dirty Santa party that we're going to that's going to be really funny. We have all kinds of things to think about in this Christmas season. And what happens so easily is that all of those different things that intrude upon our calendar and our schedule and our conscience invade the space that belongs to Christ and causes us to put him out of this Christmas season. For us to deprioritize him during the season that is meant more than any other to celebrate him and prioritize him. And so when we sing joy to the world, the Lord has come, let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room. Reminds us if we let it. This is a busy season. There are lots of things being demanded of us. But the most important thing is to celebrate my Jesus. And I'll tell you this now more than ever. You've heard me, if you've been here any length of time, you've heard me say this a hundred times. There is no greater habit that anyone can develop than to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in God's presence through prayer. At no point in the year is that more important than the Christmas season. So let joy to the world encourage you to do that. Wake up early tomorrow. I promise you, I promise you, if you wake up 30 minutes earlier than you normally do tomorrow, and you spend the first 10 minutes becoming cognizant and making coffee, and the latter 20 minutes reading and praying, that will be a better invested half hour than whatever you were going to gain by sleeping for that additional time. Let this season be a season that pushes you back to Christ as you prepare room in your hearts for him. The second verse. Joy to the earth. The Savior reigns. And that says, let men their songs employ. The original version, and I think this is important, we'll get back to it, says, our mortal songs employ. And then it says, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy. Andrew, if you can leave that up there. Here's why I think it's important, the language that is used in the original line from 300 years ago, where it says, our immortal songs employ. Now, we don't sing that. That doesn't make any sense to us. That's not vernacular that we would use. Let men their songs employ seems to get the job done. But here's the deal with mortal. Mortal admits he is immortal. I am mortal. I am less than. It's a declaration of the beginning of the Bible where it says, in the beginning God created, establishing this fundamental relationship that he is the creator and I am the created. So when we say our mortal songs employ, what we're admitting is that we're not enough. This is the best we can do. The best we can do is sing to you with a pure heart and invite you in. It's not just let men their songs employ because that doesn't have the same bite that mortal does. Our mortal songs employ because we are insufficient and this is all that we can give. So when we sing at the end of my sermon, we will sing joy to the world again, and we will sing let men their songs employ, but I want your brain to go to mortal, understanding God, I am insufficient. You are God. I am not. I am mortal. You are immortal. By your love and by your grace and by your goodness and by your sacrifice and by the arrival that we are celebrating in this season, we become immortal from your love. But right now, as I sit in this seat, as I stand in that space, my songs are mortal. And I love you for making me immortal. Let men their songs employ. And then, these great lines, while fields and Jesus says in Luke chapter 19, verses 39 through again. There was a season in my life when I was quote unquote rugged. I went to REI. I shopped at the scratch and dent sales. I owned, listen, some of you will understand this. I'm looking at you, Jacob Farmer. I owned Chacos in 1999, pal. Do you understand? Like, I was OG on the Chacos. And if you don't know what Chacos are, you're not cool. And I would go hiking. I remember I would go on the Appalachian Trail. I went one time. It was February. It was freezing. I made the mistake in getting into my tent of knocking over my boot. And when I woke up the next day, I had to peel it off the ground because it was frozen to the ground ground and it was thawing out on my sock as we would walk that day. I remember one time we forgot water and I was mixing dry oatmeal, this is true, with my spit for sustenance until we could find a brook and a pot that we could boil water in so that we wouldn't die. I used to go hiking. I have not done that for years. But when I did, and when I would be at the top of a mountain or have an incredible view, and I've had this opportunity, God's been good to me all over the place. I remember I would feel the presence of God in those places. I remember there was one time in particular when I was in Quito, Ecuador. And we went out to this camp, this youth camp in the rainforest. And we had the opportunity to hike up the mountain. And so we walked for 60 or 90 minutes up this mountain at very high altitude, like 11,000 feet. It was a hard hike. And we got to the top. And as we got to the top of this mountain, I look around and there's mountains all around us. And this cloud moves in over us, literally, and settles into the valley from whence we came. And we walked down the trail, into the clouds, into the rainstorm that it created by moving over the mountain. And I remember in that space being awed at the glory of God. And if you're a hiker, and if you're a nature person, and you're a person of spirituality, I think it's undeniable that when you're in those places, you see the glory of God. You see his goodness. You see the wonders of his love. And when I'm in those places, I feel closer to him. I marvel at him. And so Jesus says, if we don't proclaim his praise, the rocks will cry out themselves. And if you're a person who's been out in nature and is moved by that, if you've been to the Grand Canyon as I have. You've seen the rocks cry out. You know that's true experientially. And so what praise is. Singing to God. Is an invitation. To participate. In what's already happening. Do you understand? It's not on you to praise God. It's not on you to proclaim His name. It's not on you to proclaim His glory and His goodness. And it's not as if we don't do it at grace this morning that it simply won't happen. No. all of creation is proclaiming the glory of the King and of the Creator. Romans 1 says that God has written Himself into nature so that we can see it and that no man is without excuse. Walk outside and God has written His glory in the sky so when we sing, we are not initiating something that's not happening. We are participating in something that's been going on for eons and ages. We're simply joining into the chorus of creation and proclaiming his name. So when we say that line, repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, we are acknowledging that we are repeating the joy and the glory and the goodness and the praise that's going on outside of these walls all day, every day, in ways that we cannot comprehend. Do you get it? When we sing joy to the world, the Lord has come. When we sing repeat the sounding joy, are acknowledging. We're not initiating this. We're echoing in with creation, with what's been happening for thousands of years without us. Now the third verse. The third verse might be my favorite. No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. And listen, I know that's a weird one to be my favorite. But I don't know how many years you've sang the song or you've heard it sung. And we get to that last line, far as, far as the curse is found. And then we sing it again. That's as close as I'm going to get to singing this one. And we just sing it. Thank you for your clapping. We just sing it because those are the lyrics. And it's like, it's almost comical because it's just like, happy joy to the world. You know, this is a happy song. And then we get to the third verse. And even this week, I went to Gibby once I was writing the sermon and I was like, hey dude, are we going to do the third verse? And he was like, no, that one's weird. And I was like, oh, can we do it? And I don't, you guys don't know how much trust I put in him. I never, ever, do I ever tell you to sing a song or do a thing? He's not, he's shaking his head no, because I paid him. But no, I never like, hey dude, we have to do this here, we have to do this song last, so I need you to sing this. I never give him instructions like that. But this week I was like, I need you to find a way to do the third verse. Because we get to that place where we just sing far as far as the curse is found. And I think we just sing it, but we don't think about it. And we might not even understand it. So let's understand it. Genesis chapter 3 verses 17 through 19 say this. To Adam he said, because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree, a fundamental sin of men. Just saying. I'm done listening to you, Jen. Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. Because Eve ate of the apple, and because Adam listened to his wife, because he sinned too, there was a curse. And the curse was that there would be great pain and childbearing. And the curse for all of mankind was that now you have to work for your food. And it will be hard labor. There will be thorns and thistles that make it challenging. Do you realize that Adam and Eve were birthed into an all-inclusive resort? It was just, that's how they existed. Have you ever been to one of those? You just, there's just drinks in your room. There's just water in your refrigerator. And then you drink the water and you come back from going to the pool and there's more water in there. And then you go wherever you want to go for lunch. It's mediocre, but it's there and free. And then you go to dinner wherever you, there's no work involved. You're just reading and relaxing all day. That's what Adam and Eve were born into, but they sinned. They got that fundamental relationship wrong. God is the creator. We is the created. The serpent spoke into Eve's ear and said, you don't have to be like that. You can be like this. You can be as the creator and know what right from wrong. And so they chose to throw off the auspices of the original agreed upon relationship where God is the creator and we are the created. And they said, no, we want to be like the created. And so they inherited the curse. And the curse is that we have to work hard for our food. We have to labor. There are thorns and thistles. And if you want to read more deeply into it, the curse, more pointedly, is cancer. Cancer did not exist in the Garden of Eden. The curse is disabilities. Disabilities didn't exist in the Garden of Eden. The curse is anxiety and depression. The curse is divorce. The curse is abuse. The curse is that hurt people hurt people. The curse is loneliness. Do you understand? The curse is hurt and tragedy and pain. And one of my favorite verses that I bring up all the time and I preach it at every funeral I ever do is in Revelation chapter 20, chapter 21, where it says, at the end of days, God will be with his people and his people will be with their God and there will be no more weeping and no more crying and no more pain anymore for the former things, the curse have passed away. And so what this verse proclaims is it acknowledges that the curse is worldwide. But it says, That's the curse. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. He comes to expunge all of those things forever to make all the right things wrong and the sad things untrue. So when we sing the third verse of joy to the world, let us acknowledge that we know what the curse is and we know it's a result of sin and we know all the things are wrapped up in the curse. But when Jesus comes back one day and Christmas celebrates and acknowledges the fact that Jesus will come back and that he does keep his promises because God sent him and we acknowledge his reception and we look forward to his return. And as far as that curse is found, his blessings will flow and expunge. So we can sing that verse impugned with greater meaning when we understand the curse and we understand its healing. I didn't mean to rhyme those last four lines, but that was all right. Fourth verse. This one's great. He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love. I think this is an incredibly poignant and appropriate verse for us now in our current political climate. I hesitated to make this parallel because I truly believe that the things we talked about in each of the first three verses are meaningful and impactful or I would not have wasted your time with them. And I'm afraid that when I say what I'm about to say that we're going to lose the rest of it for this point. So please let's not do that. Let's just be grownups. But here's what I know about this room. There was an election in 2024. And some people in this room voted conservatively, believing that that candidate was most aligned with their values, and some people in this room voted liberally, believing that that candidate best aligned with their values. Some people didn't vote at all because there was no one that was representative of their values, and some people didn't vote at all because they're bad citizens. Well, I would say I'm just kidding, but I'm not. But we all had different reasons for the choices that we made that November. But here's what I know is part of everyone's reasoning. This candidate is not perfect, but they align with my values in this way, so I'm going to vote for them, and I'm going to overlook the shortcomings that they have as a person in their character. Okay? I don't think anyone here thinks that they voted for someone who was perfect in every way and was the ideal leader in every way. And I think as I trace back through my life, I'm 44, I've seen a lot of presidents. And I've seen a lot of elections. And you have too. And I don't think there's ever been a single time in your life when you voted or your parents voted and who they were voting for they thought was moral exemplar, ideal human on the planet, we have to make no exceptions for their character or their morality or their policies, but they're enough in line with me that I'm going to vote for them. Yeah? Jesus, Isaiah tells us, is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And Revelation tells us this in Revelation 19, one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. On his robe and on his thigh, he has this name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. So in Revelation 19, there is this picture of Jesus crashing out of the sky. I've said dozens of times, if not hundreds of times in this place, that to be a Christian is to believe that Jesus is who he says he is. He's the son of God and divine. He did what he said he did. He died and he raised again on the third day. And he's going to do what he says he's going to do, which is Revelation 19. One day he's going to come crashing through the clouds and he's going to reclaim creation for his father and for himself. And he'll be riding on a horse and on his thigh will be tattooed, will be emblazoned, righteous and true. And he's going to make all the wrong things right and all the sad things untrue. And he is going to rescue his creation. And then he will sit on his throne as king of kings and lord of lords. And he is one that no matter how we voted in the past, we would vote for him. And we would not have to make equivocations for him. I don't agree with some of his policies. Well, then you're wrong, buddy. We wouldn't have to make equivocations for his morality. One day he will lead. One day he will sit on the rightful throne of the universe. And when that day comes, for the rest of our days, we will follow him, resting easy in his leadership, trusting in his wisdom, finding peace in his sovereignty, and finding joy in worshiping him and him alone. He will be the perfect king of kings. And he will sit on the throne of the universe. And verse 4 proclaims that. He rules the world with truth and grace and he makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and the wonders of his love. So I'm going to pray. And as I pray, the band's going to come back up. And we're going to sing joy to the world again. And if you don't mean it a little bit more than you did when we sang it at the start, well, I'm just a bad preacher. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your servant Isaac Watts who gave us the gift of this song. Thank you for how much meaning it has and how rich it is. Lord, your son's arrival brings joy to the whole world. It gives us a reason to praise and to sing. It gives us a reason to be happy and to be hopeful. So God, I pray that as we sing here in a minute, that we would remember what these words mean. That we would put meaning and passion behind them as we declare and proclaim your son. And we claim the joy of what this season is. Help us sing with meaning, God, and help us sing to you. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right. Well, good morning, everybody. It's good to see everybody's Christmas sweaters. Steve, it's nice to see your festive Christmas blazer. Thank you. This morning. If you don't understand what's happening on my sweater, that's on you. All right. This is from the movie Christmas Vacation. Chevy Chase is up hanging lights and he pulls the gutter and a shard of ice shoots into their obnoxious neighbor's room, shattering the window and the stereo system. And when they get home, Julia Louise Dreyfuss' character says what's on Jen's sweater, which is why is the carpet wet, Todd, and to which he responds disgustedly, I don't know, Margo. So that's what this is. Just so you know, if you're looking at my sweater going, that doesn't make any sense to me, that's where it comes from, okay? And I just wish that you had as much joy in your clothes as I do in mine. This week we continue, as Haley just mentioned, which it is Christmas Sweater Sunday. It's not Christmas Overall Sunday. I don't know what you're doing, but it is. What was it, Christmas Knits, if that's not your love language? It is yours. So, yeah, very good. The series is called Here We Go, A Wassailing, and we're looking at Christmas songs that we sing, and we're seeking to understand them in a deeper way so that when we sing them at Christmas, hopefully they're imbued with greater meaning. As we approach this one, I have a sensibility or a standard in my life. I'm almost always consuming two books. I'm consuming one on the app Audible, which is a wonderful app, and that's where I consume nonfiction. Biography, sociology, often history, political stuff, that's where I do my learning because it's hard to sit down and read those books, at least for me. And then I try to always be reading a book in addition to the book that I'm listening to, and I read fiction. But the standard for me in the fiction that I read is I almost exclusively read classics because I kind of think, and I know that all of this sounds pretentious. I'm talking to you about how much I read and what I read and that I only read the classics and blah, blah, blah. Fine. I would assume that if you're not a reader, there is this belief amongst readers that we are somehow superior to non-readers. But what I would argue is that we just have more free time than you. You're busier than we are, and so we fill it with reading. Regardless, I read classics, because here's my thought. If it's been in print for over 50 years, then that author had something to say beyond just the story that is written. So if it's been around for a long time, I'm more apt to read it because I feel like it was written with purpose. And I feel like what is contained in those pages moves beyond just the story. And what I've found over and over and over again is that it really offers profound insight into the human spirit and human psyche. And it has a good commentary on life. And here's what's wild to me about the classics when you read them, is they were written in the mid-1800s, but the dynamics of human life persist today and are absolutely relatable. And so in literature, I have a proclivity for the classics because there's a reason that they've kind of billowed down through the centuries. And so this morning, I bring that up because this morning we arrive at maybe the most famous Christmas carol there is outside of Jingle Bells. And Jingle Bells means nothing. So we're not going to talk about that. But the one that does mean something is this Christmas carol, Joy to the World, that we sang at the beginning of the service. It was written by a pastor named Isaac Watts in the early 1700s. So the words of joy to the world that we sing every year are over 300 years old. It is very much a classic. And so to honor the classic this morning, as we focus ourselves on the songs that we sing at Christmas time, I want to go through this song, what's called exegetically. To preach exegetically is to go through a passage and just verse by verse, what does it mean, what does it mean, what does it mean? And so I want to take that practice and apply it to the song of joy to the world and go through it exegetically and understand what we're singing because I believe that there's something profound in each verse that may pass us by as we just sing it every year and we repeat with sounding joy and all the things. It's going to be really, really hard, I'm just saying this right now, for me to not sing parts of this song to you as I preach. I've been in sermons before where the pastor would just like pause and start singing awkwardly. And even if they have a good voice, you're still like, what are you doing, dude? So I'm going to really try hard not to sing to you this morning, but I don't know what's going to come out. I'm flying by the seat of my pants. So let's look at this wonderful Christmas carol written by Isaac Watts that we sing every year, and let's seek a greater understanding of what's going on when we sing it. Here's the first verse. Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. Let every heart. Where's Gibson? Gibby. In the original, in my notes, there's an apostrophe and the E, the second E in every. And one of the great things about our Christian heritage is that we apostrophize words that don't make any sense. And you've robbed us from this experience. I appreciate that you kept heaven, but every. Come on, man. Aren't you from Kentucky? Please don't fix it. Let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing. So the first thing we see, he is actually going to go fix this as I preach to you. Let's just give him time. It's my fault. I made a big deal of it. There we go. Thank you. Now we've had the full experience, Gibberoo. Thanks, pal. The first thing that I want to point out is how it starts. Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king. Every Easter, rather, I share with you this quote, and I'll share it again here as we approach Christmas. It's an Easter quote, but it's apropos today. It's from John Paul II, one of the great popes of the Catholic Church. And he said, For we do not give way to despair, for we are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. And what he means is we serve a Savior that has conquered sin and death. We serve a Savior that gives us joy in whom we can rest easy. And so when it starts off, it's appropriately so. Joy to the world, the Lord has come. This person, this Messiah, this entity that will defeat sin and death has come. And so we can experience joy. And there should be no more joyful people in the Christmas season than Christians because we understand fully what it is for and what it is about. And make no mistake, we get into the hustle and the bustle of the Christmas season, but let us not forget that Jesus is why we are here, and he gives us joy. To the next point, in here it says, let every heart prepare him room at my last church my pastor a guy named Jonathan about every other year if not annually would preach the same Christmas message and I think that the point of it was an excellent one. We see it in Luke chapter 2, verses 6 and 7. Let's read this together. While they were there, there came a time for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in clothes and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them. You've probably heard it. There was no room for them in the inn. And it's this idea that Joseph and Mary went down not for what they knew to be Christmas, but what we knew to be Christmas. Also probably in September, not in December, but that's neither here nor there. But they went down for the census and gave birth to Jesus. And they gave birth to Jesus in the manger because there was no room for them in the inn. That's the famous line. And so my pastor used to say in the Christmas season, let us make room for Jesus in our hearts. Let us not be like the innkeeper. And here's why that's tricky. This season has so many things that demand our time and our attention, does it not? Just yesterday, I was talking to Jen. What do you think we should get for John? I bought him this and this and this. We have this much money left. What do you think we should get for him? And so we're sitting there using our day talking about what we should get for our four-year-old who's eventually going to throw away everything that he gets in favor of other things that he gets when he's nine, which he will then throw away as well. It's an endless cycle. And she also shared with me that she was trying to buy some pajamas for Fammy Jammy Sunday because we got a match. And it's difficult to find. I'm just going to be really real with you guys. It's difficult to find pajamas I can preach in, okay? We would all be uncomfortable with the pants situation and all of the pajamas coming from Amazon. We don't want that. So it's tricky. And she's like, I've spent two and a half hours of my life trying to buy pajamas for us for this stupid thing at your stupid church. That's a loose paraphrase. She didn't say that. We have parties to go to. We have gifts to buy. On Christmas Eve, I've got to preach a sermon. You've got to come to a service. The band has to play music. You've got family things you're thinking about. You've got gifts to wrap. Santa has to sit in the living room and assemble things for Christmas morning. We have office parties to go to. We have friend parties to go to. We have regular gifts that we're getting, and then we have to think of the hilarious things to get for the dirty Santa party that we're going to that's going to be really funny. We have all kinds of things to think about in this Christmas season. And what happens so easily is that all of those different things that intrude upon our calendar and our schedule and our conscience invade the space that belongs to Christ and causes us to put him out of this Christmas season. For us to deprioritize him during the season that is meant more than any other to celebrate him and prioritize him. And so when we sing joy to the world, the Lord has come, let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room. Reminds us if we let it. This is a busy season. There are lots of things being demanded of us. But the most important thing is to celebrate my Jesus. And I'll tell you this now more than ever. You've heard me, if you've been here any length of time, you've heard me say this a hundred times. There is no greater habit that anyone can develop than to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in God's presence through prayer. At no point in the year is that more important than the Christmas season. So let joy to the world encourage you to do that. Wake up early tomorrow. I promise you, I promise you, if you wake up 30 minutes earlier than you normally do tomorrow, and you spend the first 10 minutes becoming cognizant and making coffee, and the latter 20 minutes reading and praying, that will be a better invested half hour than whatever you were going to gain by sleeping for that additional time. Let this season be a season that pushes you back to Christ as you prepare room in your hearts for him. The second verse. Joy to the earth. The Savior reigns. And that says, let men their songs employ. The original version, and I think this is important, we'll get back to it, says, our mortal songs employ. And then it says, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy. Andrew, if you can leave that up there. Here's why I think it's important, the language that is used in the original line from 300 years ago, where it says, our immortal songs employ. Now, we don't sing that. That doesn't make any sense to us. That's not vernacular that we would use. Let men their songs employ seems to get the job done. But here's the deal with mortal. Mortal admits he is immortal. I am mortal. I am less than. It's a declaration of the beginning of the Bible where it says, in the beginning God created, establishing this fundamental relationship that he is the creator and I am the created. So when we say our mortal songs employ, what we're admitting is that we're not enough. This is the best we can do. The best we can do is sing to you with a pure heart and invite you in. It's not just let men their songs employ because that doesn't have the same bite that mortal does. Our mortal songs employ because we are insufficient and this is all that we can give. So when we sing at the end of my sermon, we will sing joy to the world again, and we will sing let men their songs employ, but I want your brain to go to mortal, understanding God, I am insufficient. You are God. I am not. I am mortal. You are immortal. By your love and by your grace and by your goodness and by your sacrifice and by the arrival that we are celebrating in this season, we become immortal from your love. But right now, as I sit in this seat, as I stand in that space, my songs are mortal. And I love you for making me immortal. Let men their songs employ. And then, these great lines, while fields and Jesus says in Luke chapter 19, verses 39 through again. There was a season in my life when I was quote unquote rugged. I went to REI. I shopped at the scratch and dent sales. I owned, listen, some of you will understand this. I'm looking at you, Jacob Farmer. I owned Chacos in 1999, pal. Do you understand? Like, I was OG on the Chacos. And if you don't know what Chacos are, you're not cool. And I would go hiking. I remember I would go on the Appalachian Trail. I went one time. It was February. It was freezing. I made the mistake in getting into my tent of knocking over my boot. And when I woke up the next day, I had to peel it off the ground because it was frozen to the ground ground and it was thawing out on my sock as we would walk that day. I remember one time we forgot water and I was mixing dry oatmeal, this is true, with my spit for sustenance until we could find a brook and a pot that we could boil water in so that we wouldn't die. I used to go hiking. I have not done that for years. But when I did, and when I would be at the top of a mountain or have an incredible view, and I've had this opportunity, God's been good to me all over the place. I remember I would feel the presence of God in those places. I remember there was one time in particular when I was in Quito, Ecuador. And we went out to this camp, this youth camp in the rainforest. And we had the opportunity to hike up the mountain. And so we walked for 60 or 90 minutes up this mountain at very high altitude, like 11,000 feet. It was a hard hike. And we got to the top. And as we got to the top of this mountain, I look around and there's mountains all around us. And this cloud moves in over us, literally, and settles into the valley from whence we came. And we walked down the trail, into the clouds, into the rainstorm that it created by moving over the mountain. And I remember in that space being awed at the glory of God. And if you're a hiker, and if you're a nature person, and you're a person of spirituality, I think it's undeniable that when you're in those places, you see the glory of God. You see his goodness. You see the wonders of his love. And when I'm in those places, I feel closer to him. I marvel at him. And so Jesus says, if we don't proclaim his praise, the rocks will cry out themselves. And if you're a person who's been out in nature and is moved by that, if you've been to the Grand Canyon as I have. You've seen the rocks cry out. You know that's true experientially. And so what praise is. Singing to God. Is an invitation. To participate. In what's already happening. Do you understand? It's not on you to praise God. It's not on you to proclaim His name. It's not on you to proclaim His glory and His goodness. And it's not as if we don't do it at grace this morning that it simply won't happen. No. all of creation is proclaiming the glory of the King and of the Creator. Romans 1 says that God has written Himself into nature so that we can see it and that no man is without excuse. Walk outside and God has written His glory in the sky so when we sing, we are not initiating something that's not happening. We are participating in something that's been going on for eons and ages. We're simply joining into the chorus of creation and proclaiming his name. So when we say that line, repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, we are acknowledging that we are repeating the joy and the glory and the goodness and the praise that's going on outside of these walls all day, every day, in ways that we cannot comprehend. Do you get it? When we sing joy to the world, the Lord has come. When we sing repeat the sounding joy, are acknowledging. We're not initiating this. We're echoing in with creation, with what's been happening for thousands of years without us. Now the third verse. The third verse might be my favorite. No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. And listen, I know that's a weird one to be my favorite. But I don't know how many years you've sang the song or you've heard it sung. And we get to that last line, far as, far as the curse is found. And then we sing it again. That's as close as I'm going to get to singing this one. And we just sing it. Thank you for your clapping. We just sing it because those are the lyrics. And it's like, it's almost comical because it's just like, happy joy to the world. You know, this is a happy song. And then we get to the third verse. And even this week, I went to Gibby once I was writing the sermon and I was like, hey dude, are we going to do the third verse? And he was like, no, that one's weird. And I was like, oh, can we do it? And I don't, you guys don't know how much trust I put in him. I never, ever, do I ever tell you to sing a song or do a thing? He's not, he's shaking his head no, because I paid him. But no, I never like, hey dude, we have to do this here, we have to do this song last, so I need you to sing this. I never give him instructions like that. But this week I was like, I need you to find a way to do the third verse. Because we get to that place where we just sing far as far as the curse is found. And I think we just sing it, but we don't think about it. And we might not even understand it. So let's understand it. Genesis chapter 3 verses 17 through 19 say this. To Adam he said, because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree, a fundamental sin of men. Just saying. I'm done listening to you, Jen. Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. Because Eve ate of the apple, and because Adam listened to his wife, because he sinned too, there was a curse. And the curse was that there would be great pain and childbearing. And the curse for all of mankind was that now you have to work for your food. And it will be hard labor. There will be thorns and thistles that make it challenging. Do you realize that Adam and Eve were birthed into an all-inclusive resort? It was just, that's how they existed. Have you ever been to one of those? You just, there's just drinks in your room. There's just water in your refrigerator. And then you drink the water and you come back from going to the pool and there's more water in there. And then you go wherever you want to go for lunch. It's mediocre, but it's there and free. And then you go to dinner wherever you, there's no work involved. You're just reading and relaxing all day. That's what Adam and Eve were born into, but they sinned. They got that fundamental relationship wrong. God is the creator. We is the created. The serpent spoke into Eve's ear and said, you don't have to be like that. You can be like this. You can be as the creator and know what right from wrong. And so they chose to throw off the auspices of the original agreed upon relationship where God is the creator and we are the created. And they said, no, we want to be like the created. And so they inherited the curse. And the curse is that we have to work hard for our food. We have to labor. There are thorns and thistles. And if you want to read more deeply into it, the curse, more pointedly, is cancer. Cancer did not exist in the Garden of Eden. The curse is disabilities. Disabilities didn't exist in the Garden of Eden. The curse is anxiety and depression. The curse is divorce. The curse is abuse. The curse is that hurt people hurt people. The curse is loneliness. Do you understand? The curse is hurt and tragedy and pain. And one of my favorite verses that I bring up all the time and I preach it at every funeral I ever do is in Revelation chapter 20, chapter 21, where it says, at the end of days, God will be with his people and his people will be with their God and there will be no more weeping and no more crying and no more pain anymore for the former things, the curse have passed away. And so what this verse proclaims is it acknowledges that the curse is worldwide. But it says, That's the curse. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. He comes to expunge all of those things forever to make all the right things wrong and the sad things untrue. So when we sing the third verse of joy to the world, let us acknowledge that we know what the curse is and we know it's a result of sin and we know all the things are wrapped up in the curse. But when Jesus comes back one day and Christmas celebrates and acknowledges the fact that Jesus will come back and that he does keep his promises because God sent him and we acknowledge his reception and we look forward to his return. And as far as that curse is found, his blessings will flow and expunge. So we can sing that verse impugned with greater meaning when we understand the curse and we understand its healing. I didn't mean to rhyme those last four lines, but that was all right. Fourth verse. This one's great. He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love. I think this is an incredibly poignant and appropriate verse for us now in our current political climate. I hesitated to make this parallel because I truly believe that the things we talked about in each of the first three verses are meaningful and impactful or I would not have wasted your time with them. And I'm afraid that when I say what I'm about to say that we're going to lose the rest of it for this point. So please let's not do that. Let's just be grownups. But here's what I know about this room. There was an election in 2024. And some people in this room voted conservatively, believing that that candidate was most aligned with their values, and some people in this room voted liberally, believing that that candidate best aligned with their values. Some people didn't vote at all because there was no one that was representative of their values, and some people didn't vote at all because they're bad citizens. Well, I would say I'm just kidding, but I'm not. But we all had different reasons for the choices that we made that November. But here's what I know is part of everyone's reasoning. This candidate is not perfect, but they align with my values in this way, so I'm going to vote for them, and I'm going to overlook the shortcomings that they have as a person in their character. Okay? I don't think anyone here thinks that they voted for someone who was perfect in every way and was the ideal leader in every way. And I think as I trace back through my life, I'm 44, I've seen a lot of presidents. And I've seen a lot of elections. And you have too. And I don't think there's ever been a single time in your life when you voted or your parents voted and who they were voting for they thought was moral exemplar, ideal human on the planet, we have to make no exceptions for their character or their morality or their policies, but they're enough in line with me that I'm going to vote for them. Yeah? Jesus, Isaiah tells us, is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And Revelation tells us this in Revelation 19, one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. On his robe and on his thigh, he has this name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. So in Revelation 19, there is this picture of Jesus crashing out of the sky. I've said dozens of times, if not hundreds of times in this place, that to be a Christian is to believe that Jesus is who he says he is. He's the son of God and divine. He did what he said he did. He died and he raised again on the third day. And he's going to do what he says he's going to do, which is Revelation 19. One day he's going to come crashing through the clouds and he's going to reclaim creation for his father and for himself. And he'll be riding on a horse and on his thigh will be tattooed, will be emblazoned, righteous and true. And he's going to make all the wrong things right and all the sad things untrue. And he is going to rescue his creation. And then he will sit on his throne as king of kings and lord of lords. And he is one that no matter how we voted in the past, we would vote for him. And we would not have to make equivocations for him. I don't agree with some of his policies. Well, then you're wrong, buddy. We wouldn't have to make equivocations for his morality. One day he will lead. One day he will sit on the rightful throne of the universe. And when that day comes, for the rest of our days, we will follow him, resting easy in his leadership, trusting in his wisdom, finding peace in his sovereignty, and finding joy in worshiping him and him alone. He will be the perfect king of kings. And he will sit on the throne of the universe. And verse 4 proclaims that. He rules the world with truth and grace and he makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and the wonders of his love. So I'm going to pray. And as I pray, the band's going to come back up. And we're going to sing joy to the world again. And if you don't mean it a little bit more than you did when we sang it at the start, well, I'm just a bad preacher. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your servant Isaac Watts who gave us the gift of this song. Thank you for how much meaning it has and how rich it is. Lord, your son's arrival brings joy to the whole world. It gives us a reason to praise and to sing. It gives us a reason to be happy and to be hopeful. So God, I pray that as we sing here in a minute, that we would remember what these words mean. That we would put meaning and passion behind them as we declare and proclaim your son. And we claim the joy of what this season is. Help us sing with meaning, God, and help us sing to you. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right. Well, good morning, everybody. It's good to see everybody's Christmas sweaters. Steve, it's nice to see your festive Christmas blazer. Thank you. This morning. If you don't understand what's happening on my sweater, that's on you. All right. This is from the movie Christmas Vacation. Chevy Chase is up hanging lights and he pulls the gutter and a shard of ice shoots into their obnoxious neighbor's room, shattering the window and the stereo system. And when they get home, Julia Louise Dreyfuss' character says what's on Jen's sweater, which is why is the carpet wet, Todd, and to which he responds disgustedly, I don't know, Margo. So that's what this is. Just so you know, if you're looking at my sweater going, that doesn't make any sense to me, that's where it comes from, okay? And I just wish that you had as much joy in your clothes as I do in mine. This week we continue, as Haley just mentioned, which it is Christmas Sweater Sunday. It's not Christmas Overall Sunday. I don't know what you're doing, but it is. What was it, Christmas Knits, if that's not your love language? It is yours. So, yeah, very good. The series is called Here We Go, A Wassailing, and we're looking at Christmas songs that we sing, and we're seeking to understand them in a deeper way so that when we sing them at Christmas, hopefully they're imbued with greater meaning. As we approach this one, I have a sensibility or a standard in my life. I'm almost always consuming two books. I'm consuming one on the app Audible, which is a wonderful app, and that's where I consume nonfiction. Biography, sociology, often history, political stuff, that's where I do my learning because it's hard to sit down and read those books, at least for me. And then I try to always be reading a book in addition to the book that I'm listening to, and I read fiction. But the standard for me in the fiction that I read is I almost exclusively read classics because I kind of think, and I know that all of this sounds pretentious. I'm talking to you about how much I read and what I read and that I only read the classics and blah, blah, blah. Fine. I would assume that if you're not a reader, there is this belief amongst readers that we are somehow superior to non-readers. But what I would argue is that we just have more free time than you. You're busier than we are, and so we fill it with reading. Regardless, I read classics, because here's my thought. If it's been in print for over 50 years, then that author had something to say beyond just the story that is written. So if it's been around for a long time, I'm more apt to read it because I feel like it was written with purpose. And I feel like what is contained in those pages moves beyond just the story. And what I've found over and over and over again is that it really offers profound insight into the human spirit and human psyche. And it has a good commentary on life. And here's what's wild to me about the classics when you read them, is they were written in the mid-1800s, but the dynamics of human life persist today and are absolutely relatable. And so in literature, I have a proclivity for the classics because there's a reason that they've kind of billowed down through the centuries. And so this morning, I bring that up because this morning we arrive at maybe the most famous Christmas carol there is outside of Jingle Bells. And Jingle Bells means nothing. So we're not going to talk about that. But the one that does mean something is this Christmas carol, Joy to the World, that we sang at the beginning of the service. It was written by a pastor named Isaac Watts in the early 1700s. So the words of joy to the world that we sing every year are over 300 years old. It is very much a classic. And so to honor the classic this morning, as we focus ourselves on the songs that we sing at Christmas time, I want to go through this song, what's called exegetically. To preach exegetically is to go through a passage and just verse by verse, what does it mean, what does it mean, what does it mean? And so I want to take that practice and apply it to the song of joy to the world and go through it exegetically and understand what we're singing because I believe that there's something profound in each verse that may pass us by as we just sing it every year and we repeat with sounding joy and all the things. It's going to be really, really hard, I'm just saying this right now, for me to not sing parts of this song to you as I preach. I've been in sermons before where the pastor would just like pause and start singing awkwardly. And even if they have a good voice, you're still like, what are you doing, dude? So I'm going to really try hard not to sing to you this morning, but I don't know what's going to come out. I'm flying by the seat of my pants. So let's look at this wonderful Christmas carol written by Isaac Watts that we sing every year, and let's seek a greater understanding of what's going on when we sing it. Here's the first verse. Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. Let every heart. Where's Gibson? Gibby. In the original, in my notes, there's an apostrophe and the E, the second E in every. And one of the great things about our Christian heritage is that we apostrophize words that don't make any sense. And you've robbed us from this experience. I appreciate that you kept heaven, but every. Come on, man. Aren't you from Kentucky? Please don't fix it. Let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing. So the first thing we see, he is actually going to go fix this as I preach to you. Let's just give him time. It's my fault. I made a big deal of it. There we go. Thank you. Now we've had the full experience, Gibberoo. Thanks, pal. The first thing that I want to point out is how it starts. Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king. Every Easter, rather, I share with you this quote, and I'll share it again here as we approach Christmas. It's an Easter quote, but it's apropos today. It's from John Paul II, one of the great popes of the Catholic Church. And he said, For we do not give way to despair, for we are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. And what he means is we serve a Savior that has conquered sin and death. We serve a Savior that gives us joy in whom we can rest easy. And so when it starts off, it's appropriately so. Joy to the world, the Lord has come. This person, this Messiah, this entity that will defeat sin and death has come. And so we can experience joy. And there should be no more joyful people in the Christmas season than Christians because we understand fully what it is for and what it is about. And make no mistake, we get into the hustle and the bustle of the Christmas season, but let us not forget that Jesus is why we are here, and he gives us joy. To the next point, in here it says, let every heart prepare him room at my last church my pastor a guy named Jonathan about every other year if not annually would preach the same Christmas message and I think that the point of it was an excellent one. We see it in Luke chapter 2, verses 6 and 7. Let's read this together. While they were there, there came a time for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in clothes and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them. You've probably heard it. There was no room for them in the inn. And it's this idea that Joseph and Mary went down not for what they knew to be Christmas, but what we knew to be Christmas. Also probably in September, not in December, but that's neither here nor there. But they went down for the census and gave birth to Jesus. And they gave birth to Jesus in the manger because there was no room for them in the inn. That's the famous line. And so my pastor used to say in the Christmas season, let us make room for Jesus in our hearts. Let us not be like the innkeeper. And here's why that's tricky. This season has so many things that demand our time and our attention, does it not? Just yesterday, I was talking to Jen. What do you think we should get for John? I bought him this and this and this. We have this much money left. What do you think we should get for him? And so we're sitting there using our day talking about what we should get for our four-year-old who's eventually going to throw away everything that he gets in favor of other things that he gets when he's nine, which he will then throw away as well. It's an endless cycle. And she also shared with me that she was trying to buy some pajamas for Fammy Jammy Sunday because we got a match. And it's difficult to find. I'm just going to be really real with you guys. It's difficult to find pajamas I can preach in, okay? We would all be uncomfortable with the pants situation and all of the pajamas coming from Amazon. We don't want that. So it's tricky. And she's like, I've spent two and a half hours of my life trying to buy pajamas for us for this stupid thing at your stupid church. That's a loose paraphrase. She didn't say that. We have parties to go to. We have gifts to buy. On Christmas Eve, I've got to preach a sermon. You've got to come to a service. The band has to play music. You've got family things you're thinking about. You've got gifts to wrap. Santa has to sit in the living room and assemble things for Christmas morning. We have office parties to go to. We have friend parties to go to. We have regular gifts that we're getting, and then we have to think of the hilarious things to get for the dirty Santa party that we're going to that's going to be really funny. We have all kinds of things to think about in this Christmas season. And what happens so easily is that all of those different things that intrude upon our calendar and our schedule and our conscience invade the space that belongs to Christ and causes us to put him out of this Christmas season. For us to deprioritize him during the season that is meant more than any other to celebrate him and prioritize him. And so when we sing joy to the world, the Lord has come, let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room. Reminds us if we let it. This is a busy season. There are lots of things being demanded of us. But the most important thing is to celebrate my Jesus. And I'll tell you this now more than ever. You've heard me, if you've been here any length of time, you've heard me say this a hundred times. There is no greater habit that anyone can develop than to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in God's presence through prayer. At no point in the year is that more important than the Christmas season. So let joy to the world encourage you to do that. Wake up early tomorrow. I promise you, I promise you, if you wake up 30 minutes earlier than you normally do tomorrow, and you spend the first 10 minutes becoming cognizant and making coffee, and the latter 20 minutes reading and praying, that will be a better invested half hour than whatever you were going to gain by sleeping for that additional time. Let this season be a season that pushes you back to Christ as you prepare room in your hearts for him. The second verse. Joy to the earth. The Savior reigns. And that says, let men their songs employ. The original version, and I think this is important, we'll get back to it, says, our mortal songs employ. And then it says, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy. Andrew, if you can leave that up there. Here's why I think it's important, the language that is used in the original line from 300 years ago, where it says, our immortal songs employ. Now, we don't sing that. That doesn't make any sense to us. That's not vernacular that we would use. Let men their songs employ seems to get the job done. But here's the deal with mortal. Mortal admits he is immortal. I am mortal. I am less than. It's a declaration of the beginning of the Bible where it says, in the beginning God created, establishing this fundamental relationship that he is the creator and I am the created. So when we say our mortal songs employ, what we're admitting is that we're not enough. This is the best we can do. The best we can do is sing to you with a pure heart and invite you in. It's not just let men their songs employ because that doesn't have the same bite that mortal does. Our mortal songs employ because we are insufficient and this is all that we can give. So when we sing at the end of my sermon, we will sing joy to the world again, and we will sing let men their songs employ, but I want your brain to go to mortal, understanding God, I am insufficient. You are God. I am not. I am mortal. You are immortal. By your love and by your grace and by your goodness and by your sacrifice and by the arrival that we are celebrating in this season, we become immortal from your love. But right now, as I sit in this seat, as I stand in that space, my songs are mortal. And I love you for making me immortal. Let men their songs employ. And then, these great lines, while fields and Jesus says in Luke chapter 19, verses 39 through again. There was a season in my life when I was quote unquote rugged. I went to REI. I shopped at the scratch and dent sales. I owned, listen, some of you will understand this. I'm looking at you, Jacob Farmer. I owned Chacos in 1999, pal. Do you understand? Like, I was OG on the Chacos. And if you don't know what Chacos are, you're not cool. And I would go hiking. I remember I would go on the Appalachian Trail. I went one time. It was February. It was freezing. I made the mistake in getting into my tent of knocking over my boot. And when I woke up the next day, I had to peel it off the ground because it was frozen to the ground ground and it was thawing out on my sock as we would walk that day. I remember one time we forgot water and I was mixing dry oatmeal, this is true, with my spit for sustenance until we could find a brook and a pot that we could boil water in so that we wouldn't die. I used to go hiking. I have not done that for years. But when I did, and when I would be at the top of a mountain or have an incredible view, and I've had this opportunity, God's been good to me all over the place. I remember I would feel the presence of God in those places. I remember there was one time in particular when I was in Quito, Ecuador. And we went out to this camp, this youth camp in the rainforest. And we had the opportunity to hike up the mountain. And so we walked for 60 or 90 minutes up this mountain at very high altitude, like 11,000 feet. It was a hard hike. And we got to the top. And as we got to the top of this mountain, I look around and there's mountains all around us. And this cloud moves in over us, literally, and settles into the valley from whence we came. And we walked down the trail, into the clouds, into the rainstorm that it created by moving over the mountain. And I remember in that space being awed at the glory of God. And if you're a hiker, and if you're a nature person, and you're a person of spirituality, I think it's undeniable that when you're in those places, you see the glory of God. You see his goodness. You see the wonders of his love. And when I'm in those places, I feel closer to him. I marvel at him. And so Jesus says, if we don't proclaim his praise, the rocks will cry out themselves. And if you're a person who's been out in nature and is moved by that, if you've been to the Grand Canyon as I have. You've seen the rocks cry out. You know that's true experientially. And so what praise is. Singing to God. Is an invitation. To participate. In what's already happening. Do you understand? It's not on you to praise God. It's not on you to proclaim His name. It's not on you to proclaim His glory and His goodness. And it's not as if we don't do it at grace this morning that it simply won't happen. No. all of creation is proclaiming the glory of the King and of the Creator. Romans 1 says that God has written Himself into nature so that we can see it and that no man is without excuse. Walk outside and God has written His glory in the sky so when we sing, we are not initiating something that's not happening. We are participating in something that's been going on for eons and ages. We're simply joining into the chorus of creation and proclaiming his name. So when we say that line, repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, we are acknowledging that we are repeating the joy and the glory and the goodness and the praise that's going on outside of these walls all day, every day, in ways that we cannot comprehend. Do you get it? When we sing joy to the world, the Lord has come. When we sing repeat the sounding joy, are acknowledging. We're not initiating this. We're echoing in with creation, with what's been happening for thousands of years without us. Now the third verse. The third verse might be my favorite. No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. And listen, I know that's a weird one to be my favorite. But I don't know how many years you've sang the song or you've heard it sung. And we get to that last line, far as, far as the curse is found. And then we sing it again. That's as close as I'm going to get to singing this one. And we just sing it. Thank you for your clapping. We just sing it because those are the lyrics. And it's like, it's almost comical because it's just like, happy joy to the world. You know, this is a happy song. And then we get to the third verse. And even this week, I went to Gibby once I was writing the sermon and I was like, hey dude, are we going to do the third verse? And he was like, no, that one's weird. And I was like, oh, can we do it? And I don't, you guys don't know how much trust I put in him. I never, ever, do I ever tell you to sing a song or do a thing? He's not, he's shaking his head no, because I paid him. But no, I never like, hey dude, we have to do this here, we have to do this song last, so I need you to sing this. I never give him instructions like that. But this week I was like, I need you to find a way to do the third verse. Because we get to that place where we just sing far as far as the curse is found. And I think we just sing it, but we don't think about it. And we might not even understand it. So let's understand it. Genesis chapter 3 verses 17 through 19 say this. To Adam he said, because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree, a fundamental sin of men. Just saying. I'm done listening to you, Jen. Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. Because Eve ate of the apple, and because Adam listened to his wife, because he sinned too, there was a curse. And the curse was that there would be great pain and childbearing. And the curse for all of mankind was that now you have to work for your food. And it will be hard labor. There will be thorns and thistles that make it challenging. Do you realize that Adam and Eve were birthed into an all-inclusive resort? It was just, that's how they existed. Have you ever been to one of those? You just, there's just drinks in your room. There's just water in your refrigerator. And then you drink the water and you come back from going to the pool and there's more water in there. And then you go wherever you want to go for lunch. It's mediocre, but it's there and free. And then you go to dinner wherever you, there's no work involved. You're just reading and relaxing all day. That's what Adam and Eve were born into, but they sinned. They got that fundamental relationship wrong. God is the creator. We is the created. The serpent spoke into Eve's ear and said, you don't have to be like that. You can be like this. You can be as the creator and know what right from wrong. And so they chose to throw off the auspices of the original agreed upon relationship where God is the creator and we are the created. And they said, no, we want to be like the created. And so they inherited the curse. And the curse is that we have to work hard for our food. We have to labor. There are thorns and thistles. And if you want to read more deeply into it, the curse, more pointedly, is cancer. Cancer did not exist in the Garden of Eden. The curse is disabilities. Disabilities didn't exist in the Garden of Eden. The curse is anxiety and depression. The curse is divorce. The curse is abuse. The curse is that hurt people hurt people. The curse is loneliness. Do you understand? The curse is hurt and tragedy and pain. And one of my favorite verses that I bring up all the time and I preach it at every funeral I ever do is in Revelation chapter 20, chapter 21, where it says, at the end of days, God will be with his people and his people will be with their God and there will be no more weeping and no more crying and no more pain anymore for the former things, the curse have passed away. And so what this verse proclaims is it acknowledges that the curse is worldwide. But it says, That's the curse. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. He comes to expunge all of those things forever to make all the right things wrong and the sad things untrue. So when we sing the third verse of joy to the world, let us acknowledge that we know what the curse is and we know it's a result of sin and we know all the things are wrapped up in the curse. But when Jesus comes back one day and Christmas celebrates and acknowledges the fact that Jesus will come back and that he does keep his promises because God sent him and we acknowledge his reception and we look forward to his return. And as far as that curse is found, his blessings will flow and expunge. So we can sing that verse impugned with greater meaning when we understand the curse and we understand its healing. I didn't mean to rhyme those last four lines, but that was all right. Fourth verse. This one's great. He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love. I think this is an incredibly poignant and appropriate verse for us now in our current political climate. I hesitated to make this parallel because I truly believe that the things we talked about in each of the first three verses are meaningful and impactful or I would not have wasted your time with them. And I'm afraid that when I say what I'm about to say that we're going to lose the rest of it for this point. So please let's not do that. Let's just be grownups. But here's what I know about this room. There was an election in 2024. And some people in this room voted conservatively, believing that that candidate was most aligned with their values, and some people in this room voted liberally, believing that that candidate best aligned with their values. Some people didn't vote at all because there was no one that was representative of their values, and some people didn't vote at all because they're bad citizens. Well, I would say I'm just kidding, but I'm not. But we all had different reasons for the choices that we made that November. But here's what I know is part of everyone's reasoning. This candidate is not perfect, but they align with my values in this way, so I'm going to vote for them, and I'm going to overlook the shortcomings that they have as a person in their character. Okay? I don't think anyone here thinks that they voted for someone who was perfect in every way and was the ideal leader in every way. And I think as I trace back through my life, I'm 44, I've seen a lot of presidents. And I've seen a lot of elections. And you have too. And I don't think there's ever been a single time in your life when you voted or your parents voted and who they were voting for they thought was moral exemplar, ideal human on the planet, we have to make no exceptions for their character or their morality or their policies, but they're enough in line with me that I'm going to vote for them. Yeah? Jesus, Isaiah tells us, is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And Revelation tells us this in Revelation 19, one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. On his robe and on his thigh, he has this name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. So in Revelation 19, there is this picture of Jesus crashing out of the sky. I've said dozens of times, if not hundreds of times in this place, that to be a Christian is to believe that Jesus is who he says he is. He's the son of God and divine. He did what he said he did. He died and he raised again on the third day. And he's going to do what he says he's going to do, which is Revelation 19. One day he's going to come crashing through the clouds and he's going to reclaim creation for his father and for himself. And he'll be riding on a horse and on his thigh will be tattooed, will be emblazoned, righteous and true. And he's going to make all the wrong things right and all the sad things untrue. And he is going to rescue his creation. And then he will sit on his throne as king of kings and lord of lords. And he is one that no matter how we voted in the past, we would vote for him. And we would not have to make equivocations for him. I don't agree with some of his policies. Well, then you're wrong, buddy. We wouldn't have to make equivocations for his morality. One day he will lead. One day he will sit on the rightful throne of the universe. And when that day comes, for the rest of our days, we will follow him, resting easy in his leadership, trusting in his wisdom, finding peace in his sovereignty, and finding joy in worshiping him and him alone. He will be the perfect king of kings. And he will sit on the throne of the universe. And verse 4 proclaims that. He rules the world with truth and grace and he makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and the wonders of his love. So I'm going to pray. And as I pray, the band's going to come back up. And we're going to sing joy to the world again. And if you don't mean it a little bit more than you did when we sang it at the start, well, I'm just a bad preacher. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your servant Isaac Watts who gave us the gift of this song. Thank you for how much meaning it has and how rich it is. Lord, your son's arrival brings joy to the whole world. It gives us a reason to praise and to sing. It gives us a reason to be happy and to be hopeful. So God, I pray that as we sing here in a minute, that we would remember what these words mean. That we would put meaning and passion behind them as we declare and proclaim your son. And we claim the joy of what this season is. Help us sing with meaning, God, and help us sing to you. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right. Well, good morning, everybody. It's good to see everybody's Christmas sweaters. Steve, it's nice to see your festive Christmas blazer. Thank you. This morning. If you don't understand what's happening on my sweater, that's on you. All right. This is from the movie Christmas Vacation. Chevy Chase is up hanging lights and he pulls the gutter and a shard of ice shoots into their obnoxious neighbor's room, shattering the window and the stereo system. And when they get home, Julia Louise Dreyfuss' character says what's on Jen's sweater, which is why is the carpet wet, Todd, and to which he responds disgustedly, I don't know, Margo. So that's what this is. Just so you know, if you're looking at my sweater going, that doesn't make any sense to me, that's where it comes from, okay? And I just wish that you had as much joy in your clothes as I do in mine. This week we continue, as Haley just mentioned, which it is Christmas Sweater Sunday. It's not Christmas Overall Sunday. I don't know what you're doing, but it is. What was it, Christmas Knits, if that's not your love language? It is yours. So, yeah, very good. The series is called Here We Go, A Wassailing, and we're looking at Christmas songs that we sing, and we're seeking to understand them in a deeper way so that when we sing them at Christmas, hopefully they're imbued with greater meaning. As we approach this one, I have a sensibility or a standard in my life. I'm almost always consuming two books. I'm consuming one on the app Audible, which is a wonderful app, and that's where I consume nonfiction. Biography, sociology, often history, political stuff, that's where I do my learning because it's hard to sit down and read those books, at least for me. And then I try to always be reading a book in addition to the book that I'm listening to, and I read fiction. But the standard for me in the fiction that I read is I almost exclusively read classics because I kind of think, and I know that all of this sounds pretentious. I'm talking to you about how much I read and what I read and that I only read the classics and blah, blah, blah. Fine. I would assume that if you're not a reader, there is this belief amongst readers that we are somehow superior to non-readers. But what I would argue is that we just have more free time than you. You're busier than we are, and so we fill it with reading. Regardless, I read classics, because here's my thought. If it's been in print for over 50 years, then that author had something to say beyond just the story that is written. So if it's been around for a long time, I'm more apt to read it because I feel like it was written with purpose. And I feel like what is contained in those pages moves beyond just the story. And what I've found over and over and over again is that it really offers profound insight into the human spirit and human psyche. And it has a good commentary on life. And here's what's wild to me about the classics when you read them, is they were written in the mid-1800s, but the dynamics of human life persist today and are absolutely relatable. And so in literature, I have a proclivity for the classics because there's a reason that they've kind of billowed down through the centuries. And so this morning, I bring that up because this morning we arrive at maybe the most famous Christmas carol there is outside of Jingle Bells. And Jingle Bells means nothing. So we're not going to talk about that. But the one that does mean something is this Christmas carol, Joy to the World, that we sang at the beginning of the service. It was written by a pastor named Isaac Watts in the early 1700s. So the words of joy to the world that we sing every year are over 300 years old. It is very much a classic. And so to honor the classic this morning, as we focus ourselves on the songs that we sing at Christmas time, I want to go through this song, what's called exegetically. To preach exegetically is to go through a passage and just verse by verse, what does it mean, what does it mean, what does it mean? And so I want to take that practice and apply it to the song of joy to the world and go through it exegetically and understand what we're singing because I believe that there's something profound in each verse that may pass us by as we just sing it every year and we repeat with sounding joy and all the things. It's going to be really, really hard, I'm just saying this right now, for me to not sing parts of this song to you as I preach. I've been in sermons before where the pastor would just like pause and start singing awkwardly. And even if they have a good voice, you're still like, what are you doing, dude? So I'm going to really try hard not to sing to you this morning, but I don't know what's going to come out. I'm flying by the seat of my pants. So let's look at this wonderful Christmas carol written by Isaac Watts that we sing every year, and let's seek a greater understanding of what's going on when we sing it. Here's the first verse. Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. Let every heart. Where's Gibson? Gibby. In the original, in my notes, there's an apostrophe and the E, the second E in every. And one of the great things about our Christian heritage is that we apostrophize words that don't make any sense. And you've robbed us from this experience. I appreciate that you kept heaven, but every. Come on, man. Aren't you from Kentucky? Please don't fix it. Let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing. So the first thing we see, he is actually going to go fix this as I preach to you. Let's just give him time. It's my fault. I made a big deal of it. There we go. Thank you. Now we've had the full experience, Gibberoo. Thanks, pal. The first thing that I want to point out is how it starts. Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king. Every Easter, rather, I share with you this quote, and I'll share it again here as we approach Christmas. It's an Easter quote, but it's apropos today. It's from John Paul II, one of the great popes of the Catholic Church. And he said, For we do not give way to despair, for we are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. And what he means is we serve a Savior that has conquered sin and death. We serve a Savior that gives us joy in whom we can rest easy. And so when it starts off, it's appropriately so. Joy to the world, the Lord has come. This person, this Messiah, this entity that will defeat sin and death has come. And so we can experience joy. And there should be no more joyful people in the Christmas season than Christians because we understand fully what it is for and what it is about. And make no mistake, we get into the hustle and the bustle of the Christmas season, but let us not forget that Jesus is why we are here, and he gives us joy. To the next point, in here it says, let every heart prepare him room at my last church my pastor a guy named Jonathan about every other year if not annually would preach the same Christmas message and I think that the point of it was an excellent one. We see it in Luke chapter 2, verses 6 and 7. Let's read this together. While they were there, there came a time for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in clothes and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them. You've probably heard it. There was no room for them in the inn. And it's this idea that Joseph and Mary went down not for what they knew to be Christmas, but what we knew to be Christmas. Also probably in September, not in December, but that's neither here nor there. But they went down for the census and gave birth to Jesus. And they gave birth to Jesus in the manger because there was no room for them in the inn. That's the famous line. And so my pastor used to say in the Christmas season, let us make room for Jesus in our hearts. Let us not be like the innkeeper. And here's why that's tricky. This season has so many things that demand our time and our attention, does it not? Just yesterday, I was talking to Jen. What do you think we should get for John? I bought him this and this and this. We have this much money left. What do you think we should get for him? And so we're sitting there using our day talking about what we should get for our four-year-old who's eventually going to throw away everything that he gets in favor of other things that he gets when he's nine, which he will then throw away as well. It's an endless cycle. And she also shared with me that she was trying to buy some pajamas for Fammy Jammy Sunday because we got a match. And it's difficult to find. I'm just going to be really real with you guys. It's difficult to find pajamas I can preach in, okay? We would all be uncomfortable with the pants situation and all of the pajamas coming from Amazon. We don't want that. So it's tricky. And she's like, I've spent two and a half hours of my life trying to buy pajamas for us for this stupid thing at your stupid church. That's a loose paraphrase. She didn't say that. We have parties to go to. We have gifts to buy. On Christmas Eve, I've got to preach a sermon. You've got to come to a service. The band has to play music. You've got family things you're thinking about. You've got gifts to wrap. Santa has to sit in the living room and assemble things for Christmas morning. We have office parties to go to. We have friend parties to go to. We have regular gifts that we're getting, and then we have to think of the hilarious things to get for the dirty Santa party that we're going to that's going to be really funny. We have all kinds of things to think about in this Christmas season. And what happens so easily is that all of those different things that intrude upon our calendar and our schedule and our conscience invade the space that belongs to Christ and causes us to put him out of this Christmas season. For us to deprioritize him during the season that is meant more than any other to celebrate him and prioritize him. And so when we sing joy to the world, the Lord has come, let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room. Reminds us if we let it. This is a busy season. There are lots of things being demanded of us. But the most important thing is to celebrate my Jesus. And I'll tell you this now more than ever. You've heard me, if you've been here any length of time, you've heard me say this a hundred times. There is no greater habit that anyone can develop than to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in God's presence through prayer. At no point in the year is that more important than the Christmas season. So let joy to the world encourage you to do that. Wake up early tomorrow. I promise you, I promise you, if you wake up 30 minutes earlier than you normally do tomorrow, and you spend the first 10 minutes becoming cognizant and making coffee, and the latter 20 minutes reading and praying, that will be a better invested half hour than whatever you were going to gain by sleeping for that additional time. Let this season be a season that pushes you back to Christ as you prepare room in your hearts for him. The second verse. Joy to the earth. The Savior reigns. And that says, let men their songs employ. The original version, and I think this is important, we'll get back to it, says, our mortal songs employ. And then it says, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy. Andrew, if you can leave that up there. Here's why I think it's important, the language that is used in the original line from 300 years ago, where it says, our immortal songs employ. Now, we don't sing that. That doesn't make any sense to us. That's not vernacular that we would use. Let men their songs employ seems to get the job done. But here's the deal with mortal. Mortal admits he is immortal. I am mortal. I am less than. It's a declaration of the beginning of the Bible where it says, in the beginning God created, establishing this fundamental relationship that he is the creator and I am the created. So when we say our mortal songs employ, what we're admitting is that we're not enough. This is the best we can do. The best we can do is sing to you with a pure heart and invite you in. It's not just let men their songs employ because that doesn't have the same bite that mortal does. Our mortal songs employ because we are insufficient and this is all that we can give. So when we sing at the end of my sermon, we will sing joy to the world again, and we will sing let men their songs employ, but I want your brain to go to mortal, understanding God, I am insufficient. You are God. I am not. I am mortal. You are immortal. By your love and by your grace and by your goodness and by your sacrifice and by the arrival that we are celebrating in this season, we become immortal from your love. But right now, as I sit in this seat, as I stand in that space, my songs are mortal. And I love you for making me immortal. Let men their songs employ. And then, these great lines, while fields and Jesus says in Luke chapter 19, verses 39 through again. There was a season in my life when I was quote unquote rugged. I went to REI. I shopped at the scratch and dent sales. I owned, listen, some of you will understand this. I'm looking at you, Jacob Farmer. I owned Chacos in 1999, pal. Do you understand? Like, I was OG on the Chacos. And if you don't know what Chacos are, you're not cool. And I would go hiking. I remember I would go on the Appalachian Trail. I went one time. It was February. It was freezing. I made the mistake in getting into my tent of knocking over my boot. And when I woke up the next day, I had to peel it off the ground because it was frozen to the ground ground and it was thawing out on my sock as we would walk that day. I remember one time we forgot water and I was mixing dry oatmeal, this is true, with my spit for sustenance until we could find a brook and a pot that we could boil water in so that we wouldn't die. I used to go hiking. I have not done that for years. But when I did, and when I would be at the top of a mountain or have an incredible view, and I've had this opportunity, God's been good to me all over the place. I remember I would feel the presence of God in those places. I remember there was one time in particular when I was in Quito, Ecuador. And we went out to this camp, this youth camp in the rainforest. And we had the opportunity to hike up the mountain. And so we walked for 60 or 90 minutes up this mountain at very high altitude, like 11,000 feet. It was a hard hike. And we got to the top. And as we got to the top of this mountain, I look around and there's mountains all around us. And this cloud moves in over us, literally, and settles into the valley from whence we came. And we walked down the trail, into the clouds, into the rainstorm that it created by moving over the mountain. And I remember in that space being awed at the glory of God. And if you're a hiker, and if you're a nature person, and you're a person of spirituality, I think it's undeniable that when you're in those places, you see the glory of God. You see his goodness. You see the wonders of his love. And when I'm in those places, I feel closer to him. I marvel at him. And so Jesus says, if we don't proclaim his praise, the rocks will cry out themselves. And if you're a person who's been out in nature and is moved by that, if you've been to the Grand Canyon as I have. You've seen the rocks cry out. You know that's true experientially. And so what praise is. Singing to God. Is an invitation. To participate. In what's already happening. Do you understand? It's not on you to praise God. It's not on you to proclaim His name. It's not on you to proclaim His glory and His goodness. And it's not as if we don't do it at grace this morning that it simply won't happen. No. all of creation is proclaiming the glory of the King and of the Creator. Romans 1 says that God has written Himself into nature so that we can see it and that no man is without excuse. Walk outside and God has written His glory in the sky so when we sing, we are not initiating something that's not happening. We are participating in something that's been going on for eons and ages. We're simply joining into the chorus of creation and proclaiming his name. So when we say that line, repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, we are acknowledging that we are repeating the joy and the glory and the goodness and the praise that's going on outside of these walls all day, every day, in ways that we cannot comprehend. Do you get it? When we sing joy to the world, the Lord has come. When we sing repeat the sounding joy, are acknowledging. We're not initiating this. We're echoing in with creation, with what's been happening for thousands of years without us. Now the third verse. The third verse might be my favorite. No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. And listen, I know that's a weird one to be my favorite. But I don't know how many years you've sang the song or you've heard it sung. And we get to that last line, far as, far as the curse is found. And then we sing it again. That's as close as I'm going to get to singing this one. And we just sing it. Thank you for your clapping. We just sing it because those are the lyrics. And it's like, it's almost comical because it's just like, happy joy to the world. You know, this is a happy song. And then we get to the third verse. And even this week, I went to Gibby once I was writing the sermon and I was like, hey dude, are we going to do the third verse? And he was like, no, that one's weird. And I was like, oh, can we do it? And I don't, you guys don't know how much trust I put in him. I never, ever, do I ever tell you to sing a song or do a thing? He's not, he's shaking his head no, because I paid him. But no, I never like, hey dude, we have to do this here, we have to do this song last, so I need you to sing this. I never give him instructions like that. But this week I was like, I need you to find a way to do the third verse. Because we get to that place where we just sing far as far as the curse is found. And I think we just sing it, but we don't think about it. And we might not even understand it. So let's understand it. Genesis chapter 3 verses 17 through 19 say this. To Adam he said, because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree, a fundamental sin of men. Just saying. I'm done listening to you, Jen. Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. Because Eve ate of the apple, and because Adam listened to his wife, because he sinned too, there was a curse. And the curse was that there would be great pain and childbearing. And the curse for all of mankind was that now you have to work for your food. And it will be hard labor. There will be thorns and thistles that make it challenging. Do you realize that Adam and Eve were birthed into an all-inclusive resort? It was just, that's how they existed. Have you ever been to one of those? You just, there's just drinks in your room. There's just water in your refrigerator. And then you drink the water and you come back from going to the pool and there's more water in there. And then you go wherever you want to go for lunch. It's mediocre, but it's there and free. And then you go to dinner wherever you, there's no work involved. You're just reading and relaxing all day. That's what Adam and Eve were born into, but they sinned. They got that fundamental relationship wrong. God is the creator. We is the created. The serpent spoke into Eve's ear and said, you don't have to be like that. You can be like this. You can be as the creator and know what right from wrong. And so they chose to throw off the auspices of the original agreed upon relationship where God is the creator and we are the created. And they said, no, we want to be like the created. And so they inherited the curse. And the curse is that we have to work hard for our food. We have to labor. There are thorns and thistles. And if you want to read more deeply into it, the curse, more pointedly, is cancer. Cancer did not exist in the Garden of Eden. The curse is disabilities. Disabilities didn't exist in the Garden of Eden. The curse is anxiety and depression. The curse is divorce. The curse is abuse. The curse is that hurt people hurt people. The curse is loneliness. Do you understand? The curse is hurt and tragedy and pain. And one of my favorite verses that I bring up all the time and I preach it at every funeral I ever do is in Revelation chapter 20, chapter 21, where it says, at the end of days, God will be with his people and his people will be with their God and there will be no more weeping and no more crying and no more pain anymore for the former things, the curse have passed away. And so what this verse proclaims is it acknowledges that the curse is worldwide. But it says, That's the curse. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. He comes to expunge all of those things forever to make all the right things wrong and the sad things untrue. So when we sing the third verse of joy to the world, let us acknowledge that we know what the curse is and we know it's a result of sin and we know all the things are wrapped up in the curse. But when Jesus comes back one day and Christmas celebrates and acknowledges the fact that Jesus will come back and that he does keep his promises because God sent him and we acknowledge his reception and we look forward to his return. And as far as that curse is found, his blessings will flow and expunge. So we can sing that verse impugned with greater meaning when we understand the curse and we understand its healing. I didn't mean to rhyme those last four lines, but that was all right. Fourth verse. This one's great. He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love. I think this is an incredibly poignant and appropriate verse for us now in our current political climate. I hesitated to make this parallel because I truly believe that the things we talked about in each of the first three verses are meaningful and impactful or I would not have wasted your time with them. And I'm afraid that when I say what I'm about to say that we're going to lose the rest of it for this point. So please let's not do that. Let's just be grownups. But here's what I know about this room. There was an election in 2024. And some people in this room voted conservatively, believing that that candidate was most aligned with their values, and some people in this room voted liberally, believing that that candidate best aligned with their values. Some people didn't vote at all because there was no one that was representative of their values, and some people didn't vote at all because they're bad citizens. Well, I would say I'm just kidding, but I'm not. But we all had different reasons for the choices that we made that November. But here's what I know is part of everyone's reasoning. This candidate is not perfect, but they align with my values in this way, so I'm going to vote for them, and I'm going to overlook the shortcomings that they have as a person in their character. Okay? I don't think anyone here thinks that they voted for someone who was perfect in every way and was the ideal leader in every way. And I think as I trace back through my life, I'm 44, I've seen a lot of presidents. And I've seen a lot of elections. And you have too. And I don't think there's ever been a single time in your life when you voted or your parents voted and who they were voting for they thought was moral exemplar, ideal human on the planet, we have to make no exceptions for their character or their morality or their policies, but they're enough in line with me that I'm going to vote for them. Yeah? Jesus, Isaiah tells us, is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And Revelation tells us this in Revelation 19, one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. On his robe and on his thigh, he has this name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. So in Revelation 19, there is this picture of Jesus crashing out of the sky. I've said dozens of times, if not hundreds of times in this place, that to be a Christian is to believe that Jesus is who he says he is. He's the son of God and divine. He did what he said he did. He died and he raised again on the third day. And he's going to do what he says he's going to do, which is Revelation 19. One day he's going to come crashing through the clouds and he's going to reclaim creation for his father and for himself. And he'll be riding on a horse and on his thigh will be tattooed, will be emblazoned, righteous and true. And he's going to make all the wrong things right and all the sad things untrue. And he is going to rescue his creation. And then he will sit on his throne as king of kings and lord of lords. And he is one that no matter how we voted in the past, we would vote for him. And we would not have to make equivocations for him. I don't agree with some of his policies. Well, then you're wrong, buddy. We wouldn't have to make equivocations for his morality. One day he will lead. One day he will sit on the rightful throne of the universe. And when that day comes, for the rest of our days, we will follow him, resting easy in his leadership, trusting in his wisdom, finding peace in his sovereignty, and finding joy in worshiping him and him alone. He will be the perfect king of kings. And he will sit on the throne of the universe. And verse 4 proclaims that. He rules the world with truth and grace and he makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and the wonders of his love. So I'm going to pray. And as I pray, the band's going to come back up. And we're going to sing joy to the world again. And if you don't mean it a little bit more than you did when we sang it at the start, well, I'm just a bad preacher. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your servant Isaac Watts who gave us the gift of this song. Thank you for how much meaning it has and how rich it is. Lord, your son's arrival brings joy to the whole world. It gives us a reason to praise and to sing. It gives us a reason to be happy and to be hopeful. So God, I pray that as we sing here in a minute, that we would remember what these words mean. That we would put meaning and passion behind them as we declare and proclaim your son. And we claim the joy of what this season is. Help us sing with meaning, God, and help us sing to you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. Hey, who yelled that? Hey, Maker. Good morning to you, pal. Good to see you. I'm just going to keep this in my pocket and hope that works. This is Family Jammy Sunday. I love this Sunday. I love how festive everyone is. A couple thoughts about it. First of all, you may look at my good friend Steve Brown over here and think, dude, you're wearing a blazer. That's not very festive. In his defense, this is how he sleeps, okay? Those are his pajamas. He's being very festive today. I also think it's really funny that we got up and we showered and some of us did makeup and hair and everything and then we put pajamas back on. So I think what we should do next year is just all agree that those of us who are going to participate, because we like fun, are going to just go to bed in these pajamas. And however we wake up is how we come to church. Then we'll be a real family together, you know? Before I just dive into the sermon, thank you for coming to Grace. If you're watching online, thank you for watching wherever you are and whatever you may be doing. I want to stop and acknowledge this is our last Sunday together in 2025. And I think it's appropriate to pause and say that. This has been a good year for us. God has blessed us. He's blessed us with new people, with new families. I got a lot of comments. I can't remember if it was last Sunday or Sunday before last. They all blur together to me. Was it last Sunday that we did the kids sing? Was that last Sunday? I got a lot of comments from folks who don't have kids in the kids men that went, holy cow, we have so many kids. Yeah, we do. We have about 50 plus kids per week. It's amazing. God's been really good to us. We were able to announce that we're going to move forward with the building campaign or with actually getting the building out of the ground. We're in the campaign. We've got a little ways to go, but we've hit the gas and we're moving forward. And we hope that two years from now we'll be worshiping in the new building for Christmas. So that's really cool too. But God has been really good to us this year. So before I just finish, before we just finish the year without acknowledging it, would you stop and pray a prayer of gratitude with me and then we'll get into the sermon. Father, thank you so much for who you are and for what you've done. God, we like to say that we think you like this church. We don't know why you like us, but you seem to. And you always take care of us. And you always guide us down the right paths. And you always provide for us in unexpected ways. We thank you for the families that are here, for the leaders that are here, for the servants that are here, for the hearts that are here. And we pray that we would continue to do our best to be good stewards of the people you entrust us with. Thank you for 2025, for the year that it was. Thank you for walking with us through it in the high times and in the lows. And God, as we look forward to this next year, we pray that you would continue to walk with us as we attempt to continue to walk with you. In Jesus' name, amen. This morning in our series, Here We Go A-Wassling, where we're looking at different Christmas songs and finding the meaning within them so that hopefully it can imbue them with greater meaning for us as we sing them, not just this Christmas, but in the Christmases to come. This morning, we arrive at what I believe to be one of the most underrated Christmas songs ever. Now, when I call it this, I know that I run this risk. I may be up here trumpeting my own ignorance, and I'm aware of that. And you may be thinking, well, that's no different than any Sunday, Nate. And that is true, but those other Sundays, I might not be aware that I'm doing it. But this Sunday, I could be doing it because I could say this hymn or this Christmas song, and you'd be like, yeah, no kidding. That's one of my all-time favorites. But I think for many of us, this is not one that we think of a lot, which is Come Thou Long Expected Jesus. Now, I've heard some people mispronounce it, Come Thou Long Expectant Jesus. That's a different song, all right? That's not what we believe. Okay, so it's Come Thou Long Expected Jesus by his people. That's the song. Now, what you may not know about this song is that it was written in 1744 by a man named John Wesley. If you have a Methodist background, then you stand on the shoulders, or it was written by Charles Wesley, rather. You stand on the shoulders, thanks Liz, she's my walking, she's my real-time editor. Just, If there's giggles, I've said something incorrect, and I'll hear about it afterwards. When she walked in today, because I'm going to use it later in the sermon, I just grabbed her and I said, what's the name of the Grinch's dog? And she said, Max. And I'm like, all right, great, thanks. And she kept walking. It was written by Charles Wesley in 1744. John and Charles Wesley started the Methodist denomination, and it is said that over their lifetime, just allow me to be a history nerd for just a second, 9% of you will care about this, but those who do will deeply care. It's said that over their lifetime, they rode over 250,000 miles by horseback through the countrysides of England and the United States, traveling as itinerant preachers. They would go to a church in the morning, they would preach, then they would get on their horse and they would travel to the next town, they would get there and preach. And church just started when they showed up, which would be really nice, because I get here at about 5.45 on Sunday mornings, and if you could just all be here, we could get on with our days afterwards. The church just starts when the pastor shows up, but that's how it worked, and they would preach three, four, five times a Sunday and then make the circuit again, and that's how they spread the good news of Jesus Christ throughout the countryside. They have a really rich history of faith. John was more of the preacher, and Wesley was more of the poet, and he wrote hymns and songs and poems. And this, I believe, is one of his best ones. And it is absolutely dripping with scripture. It is so rich in scripture. It's so rich in scripture that as I've gone through these songs, I've tried to see like, what's the point of the song? Where is it taking us? And you might remember that a couple of years ago, we did a series called The Songs We Sing, where we looked at hymns, not Christmas songs, but hymns that we sing throughout the year. And we said, where are these coming from in Scripture? And generally, they're all coming from the same place, and you can kind of funnel towards the same direction. But as I got to this particular hymn, this particular Christmas song, it was difficult to pick one way to go because it's so replete with spiritual richness. You can tell that the man who wrote this knew his Bible incredibly well, and it drips out of the words. So rather than focusing our attention on one thing, what I want to do is walk through the way that we're going to sing it today, much to the chagrin of some. We're going to sing the first two verses and then a bridge, and we're going to talk about that bridge when we get there. But I want to go through it. I'm going to read through it line by line. Some of the lines are going to come up on the screen, and I want to show you where it comes from in Scripture. So here's what I'll say up front. Every point that I make this morning, every verse that I share, every insight that I have into a particular line may not be the one for you, but I hope that this morning you can grab on to something that will sit with you, that as you sing it, because I'm going to preach to the song. I'm not going to pray at the end of my sermon. The band's going to come up at a certain point. We have a carefully crafted cue. It's going to work perfectly, just like my microphone. And they're going to come up, and I'm going to step down, and we're going to go straight into song. The idea is for me to preach in such a way that we catch something of meaning that imbues this with something that stirs our hearts, and then we stand and we sing and we shout together in full-throated praise of God with a new appreciation of what this song is. So let's dive into it and look at the lyrics of the song. Of course, the first line that won't be on the screen is, Come thou long expected Jesus. That's what it says first. And so I want us to really understand what that is, what that means, why it's there. Come thou long expected Jesus. So let's put ourselves in the mindset of the contemporaries of Joseph and Mary. And someone we'll talk about in a few minutes, a man named Simeon. And John the Baptist. And Elizabeth. Let's put ourselves in the contemporary, in the place of the believers who lived at the same time as Joseph and Mary in the pregnant months and days before the Messiah was born. Now, they were Jews. And if you are a Jewish person, you are descendant from Abraham. And they were clinging to a promise that God made to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. And if you've been here for any length of time, you've heard me say that you really cannot understand the Bible without having a proper appreciation and understanding of what happens in Genesis 12. A very quick breakdown of the beginning of the Old Testament. The first three chapters is the creation poem. That's how we got here. In the beginning, God created is the first sentence in the Bible, first stanza of the Bible. And that sets up the fundamental relationship for all of eternity. God is the creator and we are the created. God is the creator and we are the creation. And you'll see in those first three chapters, we have what's called the fall of man. And what was man's great sin? It was listening to his wife. But what was the wife's great sin? The wife's great sin and the man's was elevating themselves from creation to know, I want to be Lord like the Creator. I don't want to submit to Him. I want to be like Him. I can know right from wrong, and I can be my own Lord, and I can be my own King. That's the fundamental sin of all mankind. And anything that you have in your life that you might think of as sin or question as sin, the root of it is, nope, God, I'm not going to accept your standards and your lordship. I'm going to make myself lord of my own life. I'm going to put myself on equal playing field with you, on par with you, okay? So that's what the first three chapters address. Then after that, chapters 4 to 11 is what's called the prehistoric narrative. And we have two separate times where God is revealing himself to all of mankind in the exact same way, giving us the chance to respond to him in the exact same way. And one of them ends terribly with the flood in Genesis chapter 6. And then he says, okay, let's try again. Hamshim and Japheth, y'all go populate the earth. Those are the sons of Noah. Y'all go populate the earth. And then that leads to Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel, where they try to build a tower to reach the sky. Why? To be like God. And God says, I've given you your chance to come to me all at once by revealing myself to you all at once. Now the redemptive focus of God goes from the whole world down to one family, one man, Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans, which we know is the Sumerian dynasty. And God tells Abraham, I want you to go to this place where I will show you. And so he gathers up all of his things and he leaves with his wife Sarai at the time, later to become Sarah. And they go to what we know as Israel, the promised land. And when they get there, this is the important part, God says to Abraham, I'm going to make you a promise. I'm going to enter into a covenant with you. We know it as the Abrahamic covenant. That I'm going to give you this land that you're on right now, Israel, the promised land. God's kept that promise. The Hebrew people have it. And then he said, your descendants are going to be like the sand on the shore and the stars in the sky. God's kept that promise. The Jewish diaspora sprawls throughout the entire globe. And then he said, and one of those descendants is going to bless the whole earth. This is the messianic promise. This is the promise to which the descendants of Abraham cling throughout the Old Testament. And the span of time between Abraham and the birth of Christ, where we pick it up in Matthew, the span of time between Genesis 12 and Matthew chapter 1 is about 2,000 years. So for 2,000 years, granddaddies and dads and grandmas and moms would pass on their faith through oral tradition to their children. And they would take them to the synagogue or to the temple. And the rabbis and the priests would teach their children about this Messiah, amongst other things, about this Messiah who is to come. He's known as the coming one. And there's prophecies about him. And every generation, they wait and they look. And every generation, they hope and they wonder, is Jesus going to come? Is God going to keep his promise? Are they going to send the promise? Is the promised Messiah coming? Is he born yet? Is he here yet? Every generation looks with anticipation for this Jesus. So when we arrive in Matthew chapter 1 and in Luke chapter 2, these famous birth stories, what we have is 2,000 years of patient waiting for the Messiah to arrive. So this opening line, come thou long expected Jesus, that is what it's referring to, is that 2,000 year wait. Now here's where we can relate to this. You don't have to use your imagination to put yourself there. Unless you became a Christian last week, you understand that one of our hopes and one of our expectations is that Jesus is going to come again. Is that the Messiah will come back. And that he will come crashing through the clouds and he will get us. And he will take us to heaven. And there will be a new heaven and a new earth and that we'll be a part of it. So we have the same angst and agony and waiting that later we're going to talk about in Romans chapter 8 that they did in Joseph and Moses and Jerry's time. We'll go with that. In their time. We have that same anticipation and waiting. And do you not think that in those 2,000 years that there were kids that grew up in houses where mom and dad told them Jesus is coming, a Messiah is coming, a Messiah is coming, and that those kids went, I don't think he is. I'm out. Just like in our families that happens. You don't think there's some attrition over time and then some revivals over time in ancient Israel. There were. And there are now. So we don't have to stretch to relate to this line, come thou long expected Jesus, which is where we start. Then after that, I love this line, born to set thy people free from what? From our fears and sins release us Scripture that more adequately, accurately, and completely describes this dynamic than in Romans 6, verses 6-11. So read with me these verses. Here's what Paul's saying there. He's saying that before you knew Jesus, you were like a blind person groping in the dark and you didn't know where to go. Before you knew Jesus, you had no choice but to sin. You were a slave to it. He says in another book that our righteous deeds are as filthy rags if we have no faith. It's this idea that if we don't know Jesus, that even the good things we do are so marred with motives and a rejection of his lordship that they can't be considered righteous. We cannot do righteous things aside from Christ. We have, therefore, no choice but to sin when we are apart from Christ. But what Paul tells us is when we are buried with him in death and raised to walk in newness of life, this picture of baptism that we find in Romans 5 and Romans 6, that we actually walk in this newness of life where we are no longer slaves to sin. And because we know Jesus and because he's cleansed us and because he's sanctifying us, making us more like him in character, we now have the option not to sin. That the good things we do can be in submission to the lordship of God and motivated by the right things and a love for other people because we have Jesus in our hearts and we're no longer a slaves to sin. So the things that we struggle with and that trip us up, the things that we're ashamed of, the things that hold us in shackles, the things that we don't want anybody to know, when Jesus comes, we are no longer a slave to those. So Charles Wesley says, from our sins, release us. That's what he means, we're no longer a slave to sin. But he also says, from our fears. From our fears, release us. And it's covered in that verse too. Any society you go to, anywhere in the world, the greatest fear of everyone in the room is death. Now, Jerry Seinfeld has this great joke where some of you guys know it. I heard some giggles. Where he says that he saw a study recently where the number one fear of people is public speaking. And that just below that was death. And his joke is that means if you go to a funeral, the person speaking would rather be in the coffin than giving the eulogy. That's a funny joke. It's also stupid. No one would rather actually do that. I've given plenty of eulogies. They're not that hard. You just read them. If you're literate and your mouth works, you can give a eulogy. So we all have this fear of death. And we have this fear of death because it seems so final. That when we watch someone we love wither away, and one day they close their eyes and they don't open them again, it feels so final and so done. If there's a tragedy and someone dies suddenly, it feels so final and so complete. But what we know is that those who believe in Christ are saved, and that we're resurrected to heaven, so that when we say goodbye to a loved one, we say goodbye for now, not forever. And that as we face death ourselves, as we grapple with our own mortality, we know that one day we are going to cross that bridge too, but when we do, we say goodbye for now and not forever. I don't know if you've ever had the privilege of watching someone slowly march towards their own death and cross that horizon. But I can think of three people, I will not enumerate them, but I can think of three people in my life that I watched in faith accept the fact that they were going to die in the coming weeks and months and it was unwavering and their joy was completely steady and their smile was constantly there and they were excited to meet their God. Why? Because Jesus has released them from their fears. So we sing that line, born to set thy people free from our fears and sins, release us. We're no longer slaves to sin and we don't have to fear death. That's a wonderful line. Then it says, let us find our rest in thee. That's an allusion to come ye all who are weary and heavy laden for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I am gentle and humble in heart and in me you will find rest. Let us find our rest in you. Then, I love this line and we may not know what this means at first, Israel's strength and consolation. Israel's strength and consolation is found most pointedly in Luke chapter 2, verse 25. This is the famous story of Simeon holding up baby Jesus. I'll read the verse and I'll explain to you what's going on. Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was on him. Some of you may remember, I've done this sermon twice here, once at another church. And if it were up to me, I would preach this sermon every year on Christmas. I call it the zeal of Simeon. And I think it captures Christmas. And so you walk through all the eras of the Old Testament. Is the Messiah here? Is the Messiah here? Is it Moses? No. Is it David? No. Is it Elijah? No. And you walk through all of these people until you get to Jesus. And Simeon was a devout and righteous man. And he had pledged a vow of silence until he was able to lay eyes on the Messiah. And so Mary brought Jesus to the temple after his birth. And Simeon happened to be there, and he essentially says, I can die now. I'm happy, for I have received the consolation of Israel. Israel's strength and consolation. It always makes me smirk a little bit when I hear people talking about the state of our world and all the tragedies that happen. How can there be a God if there's this many hardships? If there's this much tragedy? And I think, well, it's a fair thought. And that's its own discussion. But if you look at the scope of history, you've got it pretty easy. We're like billionaires complaining that the air conditioning isn't exactly right. Do you know how much harder it was to live in ancient Israel than it is to live in America, in an ancient third-world country without running water or electricity? Do you know how much infant death they dealt with? Do you know what life expectancy was, mid-40s? Do you have any idea how hard it was to go to war every year? Do you have any idea how hard it is to tend your own crops just to feed your own family? No, we have no concept of how hard it was. Israel was a nation of slaves born in Egypt that had to be set free by God in a miraculous way. They went through a series of judges where they were oppressed by surrounding nations and the judges had to beat back the oppression. They went through a series of kings. They had kings for several hundred years and they only had three good ones. They were sunk into civil war. They were ruled by evil men. They got taken over by the Babylonians and by the Persians and carried off into slavery. They spent generations in slavery in Persia and in Babylon wondering if they would ever get back to the promised land that God had promised to them. Parents had to convince their children, God has not forgotten about us, we just have to wait on his timing. It was really hard to be an Israelite. They needed consoling, and they got it in the person of Jesus. Israel's strength and consolation. And I don't want to do the Olympics of suffering. We suffer too, and you suffer too. But if you want to talk to people who had known suffering and needed consolation, it was the people of Israel. But Jesus is our consolation too, and he waits on us as well. He is our strength and our consolation. Then we finish that verse kind of in summary. Hope of all the earth thou art, dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart, joy of every heart. And it reminded me of this verse. There's plenty of places we could look at for this particular ethic or idea, but this is where I go. You make known to me the path of life. You fill me with joy in your I learned the verse. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. During this time of year, you'll hear the word Emmanuel more than you hear any other time of year. And many of you know that Emmanuel means God with us. And so in Jesus' presence, we usher it down, and in so doing, we say, bring us your joy. We hope in you, dear desire of every nation, hope of all the earth thou art, and joy of every longing heart. So in him, we find joy. That's why we sing joy to the world. That's why this is such a festive time of year. And so that's how we kind of sum it up. When Jesus comes down, he brings joy with him. And so to sing to him and invite him in is to invite his joy, sometimes in a place where we need it desperately. Now we go to verse two. Born thy people to deliver. We've talked about that. And I love this part. Born a child and yet a king. This takes us to the most famous Christmas verse in scripture. And I believe that this is part of Handel's Messiah. Is that right? Does anybody know? Okay, good. Thank you. Liz knows. Of course she does. Would you like to just write my sermons, please? For to us, a child is born. And by the way, every year I try to get Gibby to do Handel's Messiah because it's amazing and I love it, but it requires a choir and an orchestra and he gets a little lazy, you know? Like he doesn't care very much about the church. He's just getting through it. So at the new church, I haven't told you guys this yet, we're actually going to have an orchestra pit. It's going to be great. I'm kidding, guys. We're not going to do that. We're going to seat 100 less people, but we will have an oboe. The verse says this, For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the 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 forevermore. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. So, Charles condenses that to born a child and yet a king. But when you expand it and you extrapolate it, it very clearly comes out of Isaiah. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. Because then it says, born to reign in us forever. Now thy gracious kingdom bring. Here, I would just point you to Romans chapter 10 verse 9. If you declare with your mouth is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Born to reign in us forever, now thy gracious kingdom bring. I love this part, and this part's a good reminder. Because these two verses here, the first two, are focused on Christmas. And what Christmas is. And welcoming in this baby Jesus. It starts appropriately. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm not there yet, Ms. Lynn. I know, I'm hard to follow. I don't give her any notes or anything. She just has to guess and she does a great job and I do a poor one. We have a lot of joy in this season. We celebrate a lot. And these verses point towards Christmas. They remind us of the coming Messiah. They start the exact right way. Come thou long expected Jesus. And then it tells us of the sentiments of Christmas and what we want to usher in. Born a child and yet a king. Call us to you. Reign in us. Reign through us. Come and claim your kingdom. But these lines remind us of something very important that we tend to overlook. At Christmas, we all have our celebrations, and we should do them, except for wearing a Steeler's hat. Anne Francis, you don't even like the Steelers. Keith, his disease is spreading. I know. I know. We all have our traditions. This week we went to, there's a street in Bedford called Winter Song. And you go and you park. It's awesome. It's absolutely incredible. And we would just walk down it and take it in. It's like it's from a movie. We like to go to this house where there's a radio station tuned to the different things in the front yard. I saw one in Falls River where it said tuned to like 97.3 and they had like four lights out there and I'm like, no thanks, pal. I'll just listen to my own Christmas music. But we have these different traditions and those are wonderful things to do with our families. I remember growing up, I loved Christmas. I loved Christmas. My favorite thing was we would go to my mom's family's house, the Greens, with three E's. You guys can figure out where the E's go. And we would go on Christmas Eve. We'd go in the afternoon. We'd take everybody's presents. Everything would be wrapped. And we'd hang out all afternoon. Mama was in the kitchen bustling. Papa was helping a little bit, but that was Mama's deal. She was getting dinner ready for everybody. And we're running around with everybody. It was my mom. My mom was the oldest of four. We had Uncle Degg, who in the 80s, his nickname was Flash, and his wife Sally called him Flash. Quick story about Flash, he got in a motorcycle accident and had to be rushed to the hospital with a broken leg. To visit him, his wife had to get wheeled in because both of her legs were broken because she was hanging her foot out of the car when she flipped it a few days ago. So that's just a good, fun story about Uncle Deg. Then we had Aunt Lori, and we had Aunt Deanna, and eventually we had Uncle Glenn when she met him. This is a deep cut, but Uncle Glenn and Aunt Deanna were the closest thing to Todd and Margo I've ever met in my life. They were pretty awesome. And then I had my cousins, Kim and Randy and Jeffrey and then my sister Amy and we'd run around all day. And then the next day we'd come back and we were allowed to bring our favorite toy that Santa brought us and we'd go back and we'd spend the whole day at Mama and Papa's again with everybody and it was awesome. But every third year we had to fly down to Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, and have Christmas with my dad's mom and stepdad, and that was the worst. I hated it, and my weird cousins that I didn't really know, I hated going down there, and then I had to pretend to love my family, and I didn't. I still don't, and that's true. I love some of them. Uncle Glenn and Debbie, if you're watching this, I love you. You're one of the ones. They do keep up sometimes. But my favorite tradition was when I was at Mama and Papa's house in the afternoons. Papa would get this little mischievous grin on his face, and he'd get down on his hands and knees, and suddenly he became Max the dog, and I became the Grinch. And we'd sneak from his bedroom to the living room, real low, so nobody could see us, although everybody did. And we'd sneak over to the Christmas tree, and we'd grab up all of Mama's presents, and then we'd scamper, giggling like school children, back into their bedroom and hide them. And then that night, we'd go to open presents, and Mama played her part, made a big fuss, why didn't I get any presents? Where are my presents? She's very upset. We're giggling maniacally. And then we rush back, and we get the presents, because now my Grinch heart has grown ten times, and we give Mama all of her presents, and she opens them last. I loved doing that. And those are good traditions, and we should have those, and I hope that you do too. But let us not forget that Jesus didn't come to give us Christmas traditions. He didn't come to give us an excuse to celebrate and to gorge ourselves on food and to get gifts and to give gifts. He didn't come to give us the Christmas season. What he came to do is rule, and he didn't even come to be the Lord of the universe alone. He came to be the Lord of you. At Christmas, Jesus didn't come to give us an excuse to celebrate. He didn't come to give us traditions. He didn't even come for us to experience joy. He came to be the king of the universe, for the government to be upon his shoulder and provide peace for eternity. But let us not forget that he also came to be the king of you. Remember that fundamental relationship? He came to remind you to set it straight. So let's have our fun at Christmas. But Jesus came to be Lord of your life too. Yeah? Now, we're going to move to the bridge. Before we do, three quick points. First one, we got a little preview. The first two verses in this point us towards Christmas. I noticed this as I went through the song. These two verses, they're backward focused. So we look in the rear view mirror, we remember Christmas, and we put ourselves where it was and what it was, and we remember all that it was. And so we appreciate Christmas. So they point us to Christmas. And what I love about the bridge that we're about to go through that was added on subsequent to in later years by other artists is that this, the end of the song points us to eternity, which is the ultimate point of Christmas. So now we focused on Christmas and what we're about to do in the song is look forward to eternity. And that's the point of Christmas. The point of Christmas now is to remind us this, that Christmas reminds us that God keeps his promises. Christmas reminds us that God keeps his promises. For 2,000 years, for 2,000 years, next week we're going to look at this line in O Holy Night, long lay the world in sin and error pining. For 2,000 years they looked forward to the reception of this Messiah. Then they received him. Now for the last 2,000 years, we anticipate his return. So Christmas every year is a reminder, God kept his promise once after a 2,000 year wait. He'll keep it again. Okay? That's what Christmas is for. Now, I'm tight on time, so I want to go through this quickly. The first several lines, you draw the hearts of shepherds, you draw the hearts of kings. Even as a baby, you were changing everything. You called me to your kingdom before your lips could speak, and even as a baby, you were reaching out for me. Those are wonderful lines, but I want to focus on what follows. Because when we sing it, you're going to feel the song start to build as these lines come up. And you're going to kind of, that's when I want to kind of jump out of my shoes and just really let it go. And here's what we sing. And now we are awaiting the day of your return. See, now we're focused on eternity. Yes, celebrate Christmas. Now we're focused on eternity. It reminded me of these verses. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. So what we have is this great group of verses in Romans chapter 8 that says, we know that all of creation has been groaning for the return of the King, for the return of the Messiah that came and then left and is looking forward to his return. Not only that, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons and the redemption of our bodies. We were designed to long for Christ. And so Christmas orients us in Christ's coming and then points us towards his future return. That's what it's for. All of creation groans for that. When every eye will see you as heaven comes to earth. I'm going to go through this one, Lynn. I'm not going to read this one. As heaven comes to earth, this is from Revelation 21, 1 through 4, where it says God will be with his people and his people will be with their God and there will be no more weeping and no more crying and no more pain anymore for the former things have passed away. It speaks of this kingdom, this new heaven, and this new earth that we anticipate as we look towards eternity. Until the sky is open, until the trumpet sounds, that's all from Revelation. This is another reason why it's pointing us towards eternity. This whole last stanza is rooted in Revelation. It's looking forward to the second return of Christ. And then this line that feels like a throwaway line, but man, it's such an important one. And I want to rest here for just a second, if you'll indulge me. It says, the bride is getting ready. The bride is getting ready. Revelation 19, 7. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory, for the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Charles pulls this right out of Scripture. And we're told several times that the church is the bride of Christ. And men, if you have a hard time thinking of yourself as a bride, I heard a pastor say that women have to deal with this all the time. I walk into a room and I say, hey guys, how we doing? And women just have to accept that they're a guy now. Okay? And that in the Bible that they have to just be a part of mankind, not man and womankind. So like, they deal with it a lot. So if your fragile ego has a hard time being a bride, talk to a therapist, all right? We're the bride of Christ. And I'll just say as an aside, when we think about the bride getting ready, it's gotten a little ridiculous, hasn't it? I can remember growing up. Raise your hand if you can remember growing up. Whoever went to a wedding reception in a fellowship hall. Yeah. And what did they have in the fellowship hall? They had dinner mints. They had chalky dinner mints. Thank you, Bill. They had, let's play this game. What else did they have, Bill? Nuts. Yes. Punch, yes, the church ladies did punch, and no one spiked it at Baptist churches. They had the little sandwiches. They had the little cucumber sandwiches. Who eats cucumber sandwiches? Who made that? Or egg salad sandwich or pimento. Yeah, pimento cheese, and you have to say it the right way. It's not pimento. We're not carpetbaggers here. It's pimento cheese, yeah. Sorry, those of you who say it correctly and are carpetbaggers. The whole thing with the dress was like a thousand bucks. And now, holy smokes, it's unbelievably expensive. The social media has ruined not the brides, but their poor fathers who have to pay for this. Do you know, I've done about 150 to 200 weddings in my life. And do you know one of the things I find most absurd about weddings is now most brides make their dad buy silk pajamas for their bridal party. And those pajamas match, right? And what they do is they all wear the pajamas to the venue so they can get ready at the venue. But here's the thing about the pajamas. Did they sleep in them the night before? No. They got up and they put on a little bit of makeup so they can go put on more makeup. Yeah? And then they wear the pajamas, they get in the car and they drive to the venue and then they get ready. They got a hair stylist there and sometimes makeup and whatever or aunt whoever and then they all get ready. And no one sees the pajamas except them. They put them on to ride in the car and then to go take them off and to put on the dress. It's the most, and they've got to cost, every time I see it, I'm like, those have to cost $500. I don't know why we're spending money on these pajamas. But there's so many little things like that. But here's the thing. We might think of the bride as getting ready the day of the wedding. But you better believe that from the day of engagement to the day of commencement, that bride is getting ready. As soon as she says yes, that bride begins to get ready. She begins to make plans. They begin to, they look for a florist. They look for the right officiant. They get a DJ. Are we going to do live music? They go to their dad. What's the budget? And the dad gives them the budget knowing full well they're going to exceed it by 20%. So if he's a shrewd negotiator, he will underscore it, right? They do the florist. They do the catering. What kind of food do we want? We've got to go to a cake tasting. We've got to go do this. We've got to go tour venues. We've got to see when the date's going to be. What are your colors? I don't know because I don't know if I'm getting married in the summer or in the fall. And that matters a lot. Am I going to get married indoor or outdoor? It's all these decisions. And so from the moment of engagement to the moment of commencement, that bride is getting ready. And in this line, as we expect, as we say, come thou long expected Jesus, come and claim your bride. What is our job? To get ready, to pursue holiness, to welcome him, to ask for him to come, to live expectantly, knowing that one day he will come and claim his bride. And so as we sing that line, the bride is getting ready, let it remind you as a church, it is our job to pursue holiness and to pursue our Jesus and to pursue righteousness so that when our Jesus comes, we are ready to receive him. As the bride of Christ, let Christmas remind us to get ready. And then it says this, as it says the bride is getting ready, the very next line is, the church is singing out. And then we go back into the first verse. And so when it says, the church is singing out, guys, let's let it rip. Let's sing with full-throated praise to our God. And we have a chance again to shout to our Lord. Come thou long-expected Jesus, born to set thy people free. From our fears and sins release us. Let us find our rest in thee. Come thou long-expected Jesus. Please stand and let's sing that together like we mean it.