Thank you for being here. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors and I get to preach the sermons. And so I'm grateful that you're here and I'm grateful that you've made grace a part of your morning if you're watching online. Thank you for doing that as well. But I will say up front that I'm going to be a little bit more brief than normal because I have a high degree of respect for the fact that many of you are here this morning to see your grandchild, and that's done, and now you're just thinking about lunch, all right? So I try to pride myself in reading the room, so loud and clear, all right? But we do find ourselves in a series, here we go, a wassailing, where we're focused on Christmas carols and looking at where they come from in Scripture and seeking through that understanding to imbue them with a greater meaning so that as we sing them as a congregation and as we sing them in our cars and listen to them, I've shared with you that Lily and I have a Christmas playlist that we listen to on the way to school in the mornings beginning November 1st. And so as we hear them and as we sing them and as we celebrate them, if we focus on them this Christmas season, maybe they can be imbued with greater meaning for us. And so that's what we're doing is we're looking at different Christmas songs and understanding them from a biblical perspective or what the thrust of them really is. The song that we're looking at this morning, and Jen and I, I want to personally apologize to you, Jen. Jen's my wife. She's sitting right there. We have laughed in our house, and I don't know if y'all have heard this phrase, but we hate it when someone says, and if you've said this, we don't hate you. We just think this phrase is ridiculous. This thing is giving this thing vibes. This is giving this vibes, right? We've heard this phrase. The song this morning gives buying presents for your parents vibes, okay? And I'm sorry to say that, but there's not a better way to structure it. And here's what I'm talking about, and you guys are probably familiar with this. Every Christmas, you need to buy your parents something, right? Like that's the nice thing to do. And it's always difficult to buy presents for your parents because they're richer than you. Mostly. I saw a clip of Dwayne the Rock Johnson and the interviewer asked him, you just bought a house for your mom. And Kevin Hart was next to him and he said, yeah, about time, a billion dollars later, he bought a house for his mom. But most of us in the room are not positioned to buy houses for our parents. And so what's probably true of you, though I don't know, but what's probably true of the majority of us is that when it comes time to buy gifts for our parents, if they want it, they would have it. And if they can't afford it, neither can you. Maybe my dad wants a nice new car. Well, that's not coming from me. I'm not putting the bow on the Lexus. Also, before I just keep going, I have to say this. I have to, because he deserves some credit. Cason Smith, Carter's son, who takes after his mom and his dad is not in the room. He's the worst. Y'all couldn't see him because he's a fifth grader and he's one of the taller ones. So he was back here. But when they started practicing, Cason moved away from everybody else because he needed room to explore the space and to dance and to perform. And if you could peek through the heads, and you didn't know to look for it, no, you couldn't know to look for it, but if you could peek through the heads, you would have seen him back here just getting after it. And if you missed it, I'm so sorry. And because he was going at it so hard, I just wanted to acknowledge him that Kaysen's the best every year when we do this. All right, what was I talking about? Yeah, buying gifts for your parents is hard. I think over the years, the two best things I've ever gotten from my parents is my mom, all she wants, every now and again, they will facilitate a vacation for our whole family. My family will go. My sister's family will go. Everyone will go on a vacation to the beach on a cruise or whatever it is. And the only thing she wants as a thank you for this, and this is the gift that you give to her, is to participate in family pictures. And my whole job, which I fail at, is to have a good attitude during pictures. Because pictures are the worst. But the best thing I can do for my mom is just not be a jerk about it and take the pictures and smile. And we went on a cruise in August that they facilitated and they wanted to do the family pictures. And it was time for Nate and Jen's pictures. And the photographer was like, do this pose, do this pose, and like look at each other longingly in this way. Laugh and giggle. And it was a degree of physical affection that Jen and I have not shown in public for 15 years. And I finally went, that's enough. We're squared away. Thanks. We're all good here. And he goes, I'm sorry. And I go, yeah, you are sorry. We're done. You've got enough. We're not going to buy any of those anyways. And then the best thing I've ever gotten from my dad, and I don't know how many of you remember this, but if you grew up in evangelical church, particularly Baptist church, in the 80s or the 90s, just raise your hand if you know what special music is. Do you know what special music is? Yes. There's a few hands raised. All right. Here's what special music is. It's not the way we usually use the word special. All right. It's different. Here's what it is. In the 80s and 90s, there were Christian songs that were not, they weren't praise hymns or choruses that you sang in the church. They were just songs that you listened to, like on the radio or on a cassette tape. And the really popular ones would have a cassette tape with a side A and a side B. And side A was the song, Ray Bolt's Watch the Lamb. If you don't know that one, can't recommend it highly enough. That's the best. Ray Bolts, Watch the Lamb. And then you'd flip it to side B, and it was just the instruments and no vocals. And so what they would do in church is after normal worship, after the choir sang, then one select person from the congregation who was gifted above and beyond everyone else in the voice department would get up, kind of like Jordan, would get up and sing to the track. So they'd play the track, they'd turn on the music, and then that person would sing. And when I was growing up, my dad was the special music guy. There's other people that dabbled around in special music in like May and June. But dad got Christmas and Easter. All right, he was a big deal. And I used to sit in the third row and mouth every word for him in case he forgot because I loved it so much. And so one year I made, and I don't know how many years ago this was, but it was long enough ago that I burned a CD. Remember that? And I made him Dale's greatest hits. And I gave him that so that he could listen to it and replay the glory days in the car because nobody cares about him anymore. He doesn't do anything special. But it's hard to get gifts for our parents because more often than not, they're taken care of, and we don't really know how we can celebrate them in such a way that's going to be impactful. The song that we're looking at this morning is a song called Little Drummer Boy, and when I say that, you probably have the same reaction that Aaron had when I told him a few years ago I wanted to do Little Drummer Boy. And his response to me was, I don't know how to get a room full of adults to sing the words parumpapumpum in a worshipful way. So maybe let's not. But in his first year here, Gibby did not know me well enough and was not yet secure enough in his job to tell me no. And I took advantage of this. And coming into the Christmas service, I said, hey man, I really think we need to do Little Drummer Boy. And he gave me the pushback of, I don't know if I want to do that. I don't know how to worshipfully sing the words parumpapumpum. Like, I don't know if I can do that. And I said, well, I really need you to do that. And here's the funny thing, If you remember last week's sermon, and most of you don't because your grandkid wasn't singing last week. Last week, I said I asked him to do the third verse of a song and that I kind of like, hey, dude, we need to do this and that I never, ever do that. And now here I am two weeks in a row telling you stories about times I told Gibby he had to sing a song. But I think these are the only two. I really do think so. We'll see, he just said, for those of you in the back. And so he did it. But in planning to do the song, it was very important to him, and I think that this is actually a wonderful quality to have in our worship pastor, and it's one of the reasons why I think he does such a good job. It was really important to him that he wanted this to be worshipful for the congregation. He wanted to try to connect it, not just be performative, but can we sing this together and be worshipful together? And so he was trying to connect those dots so that he could make it impactful and help us step into it. And as he was trying to do that, I believe it was his wife Tamara that pointed out to him, Aaron, you're the drummer boy. And he paused, and he communicated this to me the next day, and he communicated it to the church through tears tears and I've always found it very moving. Because here's why. Psalm 50 tells us this is God speaking I have no need of a bull from your stall or goats from your pens for every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills. So we serve a God who needs nothing from us. All the animals in the forest are his. All the cattle on the hills are his. What are we going to give him that he needs? What are we going to give him that flatters him? What are we going to give him that worships him? And as we enter into the Christmas season and we do all the things and we seek at Christmas to honor our God and to worship our Jesus and to adequately celebrate the birth of Christ, what do we bring to God? Gold, frankincense, and myrrh? I seriously doubt. I have no idea what heaven's like, but I don't think that there's a frankincense shortage for Jesus. I think he's got plenty if that's what he needs. He's not looking around for myrrh, trying to find a good deal on it. Like, what do we bring Jesus to adequately celebrate him? If he has everything that he needs already, what could he possibly want from us? And I think that the point that Tamara made about Gibby being the drummer boy is a profound one. And I think it's true for everyone. So just so we know, let me tell you what the lyrics are in case you've forgotten. I'm going to leave out the parumpapumpums. All right, let's just assume there's a lot of those. And I'll read the normal words. It says, little baby, rumpumpumpum, I'm a poor boy too. I have no gift to bring that's fit to give a king. Shall I play for you on my drum? Mary nodded. Go ahead. The ox and lamb kept time, which I find dubious, because they are the least rhythmic of the farm animals, and we all know it. I played my drum for him. I love this. I played my best for him. Then he smiled at me, me and my drum. Now here's what's great, okay? And this is why I'm getting emotional over Little Drummer Boy lyrics. All right, hopefully you'll be there with me in a minute and not think I'm a crazy person. Here's the point. Gibby has nothing to offer his Savior in gratitude for what Jesus has done for him. He has nothing that Jesus needs. He's just got his drum. He has been gifted, though it is hard for me to say, with some talent. He could, I think, play any instrument up here that we needed him to. When he sings, he manages to remain on key from what I can tell. He has been given a gift. And what his wife was telling him was, use that gift to glorify your God, the one who gave it to you. And use that gift for what it was intended, which is to usher everyone else in the congregation into worship. Go play your drum. Go do your thing. Go do what God created you to do and use the talents with which he imbued you to point people towards me. Go play your drum. I remember years ago, I took over as a student pastor at a church. And the youth group was large enough that they were able to furnish their own youth band. And there was a girl who was, I think, a junior at the time, maybe a senior, named Kelsey. And Kelsey was this 4'11", tops, tiny, tiny girl, and just very shy. And at the time, I had this tradition when my mama was alive called Mama Mondays. And every other Monday, I'd go to Mama's house at 1030 in the morning because I was a youth pastor. I didn't have anything else to do. And we would have coffee together. And I would just listen to stories. And Mama was a small, diminutive woman like Kelsey was, and she was very shy, and she felt very outshone by the other people around her, and so I began to draw these parallels between the two, and that developed within me a real affinity for Kelsey, and I wanted to look out for her. And Kelsey sang in the band. And I wish, I wish like heck, because she's a children's pastor in Florida now, and I wish like heck I could get her here for one week and just let you all hear her sing because she's incredible. You would never expect this voice to come out of this person. But when she would sing, she was timid. And I remember going to her and pulling her aside and saying, hey, Kelsey, God gave you a voice. He gave you a gift. And when you use it, Holly, when you use it, and for the purpose for which it was given to you and you invite people into praise with your boldness in how you use your voice, you're doing exactly what God intended with that gift. And because of that and because I watched her, not because of what I said, but just gradual comfort in the environment, I couldn't make it through a worship set without tearing up because I was so moved by Kelsey using her gift for her God to usher people towards him. She was playing her drum. And now here's the thing. You all have a drum. You all have something to play. For most of you, it would be great if you were not up here singing. We don't want that, and that's not what I'm preaching towards. We're pretty happy with our current arrangement, but you have a drum. I was reminded of this verse in Isaiah 51 that's quoted in 1 Peter, brought up later. But it says this, And when Peter extrapolates in in this in 1 Peter, he talks about Abraham and the great things that Abraham did. And you don't have to be very versed in Christianity and biblical knowledge to understand that Abraham sits on the Mount Rushmore of Christian figures. He sits on the Mount Rushmore of God followers. And what he did was amazing. And it echoes and tumbles down through the millennia. Abraham was impressive. He did amazing things. But Peter quotes Isaiah and tells you, do you know the quarry from which you are cut and the rock from which you are hewn? You're made of the same material. You have the same gifts. You have the same input from God. He's bestowed similar blessings upon you. And what I want you to hear this morning as we think about the song Little Drummer Boy and the stupid words, pa-rum-pa-pum-pum, that are actually pretty fun to sing. If you're not a stick in the mud, they're actually great. Is you've been given a drum too. Here I play for you. I played my best for you. And he smiled at me. You have a drum too. Maybe your drum is kindness. Maybe your drum is compassion. A few years ago, some friends of mine heard about a man that was disabled and shut in in essentially public housing, for lack of a better term. And he was a mess and his apartment was a mess. And upon hearing of his predicament, they went over on a Saturday and spent eight hours cleaning up what was unpleasant. That's compassion. They were playing their drum. I saw a picture, came across on a social media feed, of a mug that said, it's actually pretty funny, it said, help, I've become very important at my job and it's ruining my life. We have some people here who have influence in their space, who are leaders in their company. God's given you a drum to influence those people towards Christ. Play it. Use your influence. Show people what a Christ follower looks like and point people towards him. We have teachers in the room. You have a drum to play in front of those kids every day. We have people in this room who are incredible at gathering folks, at getting people together, drawing together community. And that's not a talent that everyone has. Chris is terrible at that. That's not a talent that we all get. But maybe it's yours, and maybe you do draw people together well. That's your drum. Play your drum. Maybe you're a good listener. Maybe you're a good friend. Maybe you're good at business. Maybe you're good at garnering influence. Maybe you can sing. Maybe you can teach. I'll tell you, it's a bummer to be given the drum of teaching because you have to do it every week. It's kind of a hassle. But maybe that's your drum. I don't know what it is, but here's what I know for sure. You have one. And if you want to honor your Jesus at Christmas or any time, play it. Play your best for him, And he will smile at you. Play your drum. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for the kids that played their drums. For the way that they honored you. Thank you for a worship team that plays theirs. Thank you for a church that wants to go and play for you as well. Father, we pray that we would honor you in this season and in these weeks and that we wouldn't lose sight of what we're celebrating. God, if we don't know what we're good at, maybe we're simply good at humility and help us play that one well too. But I pray that we would all go and play our best for you and that you would smile at us. In Jesus' name, amen.