Immanuel Sermon Audio
The Story of Christmas: Part IV
You know, those of you, huh? Thank you to those of you who have given to our missions offering. We have, as of this last week, not even including this week and the gifts that we may receive today, but we have received more over this stretch of missions offering than our church has collected over. Angie gave me numbers going back at least 12 years. So at least 12 years back, this has been our biggest missions offering, and we still have this Sunday to add to that. So thank you to those of you who gave, and just wanna remind you, if you have not, this is the most important offering we will collect in a year to send missionaries to go to these places, to plant their lives, and to tell people about Jesus. Hope that you have your Bible with you this morning. Take it out, find the Gospel of Mark, and you can find the outline that's in the bulletin if you'd like to follow along there as well. This is the last Sunday that we're gonna be talking about the story of Christmas. Next week, we're gonna do something a little bit out of the ordinary. I'm gonna share something with you called the state of the church address. So you've heard of the state of the union address that comes up in January where the president speaks. We're gonna do something similar where we're just gonna talk about our church. We're gonna look back over 2014, celebrate some of the things that God did in our church over this last year, and look forward to 2015, and talk about some of the things coming up in the next year. It will be a little bit different in that most Sundays what I try to do is find a Bible passage and talk about that passage and think about how it applies to your life. We will look at scripture next week, but this will be just a little bit different. One week out of 52 where we'll just sort of take a breath, talk about church, where we're at, where we're headed, and so I hope that you'll be a part of that next week. It'd be a great week to invite a friend, somebody who would like to know what's going on at a manual. Next week, they're gonna find all of that out in the state of the church address. After that, so two weeks from today, we're gonna begin a new series. I'm really excited about it. It's called I Am a Church Member. There's a book called I Am a Church Member. I had our staff read it, and I had our elders read it. We studied through it together, and both of those groups said, we wanna share this information, this material with our church. So let me put your minds at ease. I'm not preaching a sermon series about a book that somebody else wrote, but we're taking some of the ideas from that book. We're gonna jump into the Bible and talk about what does it mean to be a member of a church? My guess is that most of you, regardless of how long you have or have not been a part of a church family, you've probably never had somebody sit down and say, this is exactly what is expected of you as a church member. We try to do that in our new member class. If you've been to a new member class at a different church, maybe you've gotten a little bit of that, but that's gonna be our focus. What does it mean to be a church member? When we finish that up, we're going to jump right back into the Gospel of Luke where we left off a couple of weeks ago. This one is gonna be exciting. I am a church member because I'm gonna have a gift for you, a gift for every family in our church, and I am going to ask some very specific things from you. So I'm going to give you something and then we are going to ask something from you as well, and so I'm excited about that series. This morning, we're wrapping up the story of Christmas, and we've had two big goals in this four week series. One goal is just to take a breath in the busyness of Christmas and say, this is what Christmas is all about. It's not about all of the things that we tend to get distracted with during the holiday seasons. This is the true story that we celebrate at Christmas, and so we're reminding ourselves of what it is that we celebrate. We're also reminding ourselves that we have a story to tell, not just a story to celebrate, but a story to tell, and we've broken this story down into four simple parts to make it easy for you to tell and for you to share with other people. Part one, in this story, we looked at a couple of weeks ago, it's the idea that God is holy. The Bible says he is holy, holy, holy. The Bible says that in light of his holiness, we are doubly separated from him. We're separated by our creatureliness, the fact that he's God and we're not, and we're also separated by our sinfulness, the fact that he is pure and righteous and altogether holy, and we are not. And the story of Christmas is good news because it's the story of the holy God coming down to earth to bridge the gap that separated us, to bridge the divide. And we read in Luke 2 a couple of weeks back that even though our natural response to the holiness of God is fear, the story of Christmas says this, fear not for behold I bring you good news a great joy that will be for all the people for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. Part one, God is holy. Part two, we talked about the harsh truth that we all need to deal with and face, the idea that we are sinful, all of us. And sin affects everything that we do. We're not sinners because we do bad things and we sin. We talked about the fact that we sin because we are sinners. We show up broken. Sin has ruined our relationship with God. It separated us from God. And we read the good news of Matthew chapter one where the angel said she will bear a son and you will call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their sin. So part one, God is holy. Part two, man is sinful. Part three, last week, Jesus is the answer. And we looked at John chapter one last week. John chapter one tells us that in the beginning was the word and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. We talked about Jesus being uniquely situated in his person to be our savior. He's fully God and he's fully man and that matters. It was worth fighting over thousands of years ago for that truth. It's worth fighting over that truth today because as fully man he took our place and as fully God he took our punishment and we need both of those things to happen. So we talked about Jesus last week, Jesus being the answer. Last week, if you had any doubts or questions, if I had not erased them already, if you had any doubts about my mental faculties, I erased them last week. Because first of all, I got my bishops confused. I tried to talk about Athanasius when really I should have been talking about Alexander and I corrected myself on that. That is forgivable because Athanasius was the bishop who replaced Alexander. So you can cut me a little slack on that. But I also told you last week, Mr. Ron, my good friend pointed this out to me, that I tried to say that the Council of Nicaea was held in 325 BC. Which would be an amazing thing considering their debating Jesus 325 years before Jesus was actually born. So the next time I say something like that, just wad up your outline and you throw it at me from wherever you're sitting. You just throw it up on the stage and I'll repent in dust and ashes. So 325 AD, Council of Nicaea, Alexander, not Athanasius versus Arius, they debate this, he's fully God, he's fully man, that matters. Because as man, he takes your place as God, he takes your punishment, Jesus is the answer. Here's the final part of the story. This is where you come in. Notice up to this point, it really hasn't been all that much about you other than to say that you're a sinner. This is where you come in. Number four, part four, repent and believe. God is holy, man is sinful. Jesus is the answer, repent and believe. You say, I don't know how to take this story and to tell it to people at the office or to tell it to people out in the oil patch or to tell it to people back in my home and my family. I don't know how to share this story, it's very, very simple. You tell them that God is holy. You tell them that they're a sinner, just like you. You tell them that Jesus is the answer to that problem and you tell them what they need to do is repent and believe. Now our passage is marked chapter one. If you know anything about the Christmas story, we've been talking about the story of Christmas, you can find part of it in the Gospel of Luke. Luke tells the Christmas story from Mary's perspective. So you find some of it there, we looked at Luke. You can find part of the Christmas story in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew tells the story from Joseph's perspective and so you can find part of the story there. We look last week at John, which tells it backing up, not from Mary or Joseph's perspective, but from a cosmic perspective, an eternal perspective. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Everything that was made was made through him and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us so we see the cosmic perspective. And then we come to Mark, our passage this morning. Mark doesn't talk about the Christmas story. It's not here. And so you're scratching your head and you're saying, "Wait, this series is called The Story of Christmas." So we looked at Luke and we looked at John and we looked at Matthew. Shouldn't this be a three week series, not a four week series. Hang with me, take your Bible, look at Mark chapter one, verse one, and we're gonna read down to verse 20. The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel's hair. He wore a leather belt around his waist. He ate locust and wild honey and he preached, saying, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, "the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy "to stoop down and untie. "I have baptized you with water, "but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and he was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water immediately, he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven. You are my beloved son with you, I am well pleased. The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness and he was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals and the angels were ministering to him. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand, "repent and believe in the gospel." Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen and Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you "become fishers of men." And immediately they left their nets and followed him and going a little further, he saw James, the son of Zebedee and John, his brother, who were in their boat, mending the nets, and immediately he called them and they left their father's Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him. Let's pray. Lord, we love you. And as Tyler prayed, we do strive for words to express our hearts. Father, you are great, you are holy, holy, holy. You are high, you are exalted, you are lifted up, you are wise, you are powerful. Father, and we are amazed at the truth of the story of Christmas that despite our sin, you have gone to the greatest lengths to provide the solution and the answer in your son, Jesus. Father, this morning, give us eyes to see the truth about Christmas and the story of Christmas and how we fit into that story. We love you and we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Now let's admit it, be honest. At first glance, that story has nothing to do with Christmas. You read that passage and you say, that doesn't have anything to do with Christmas whatsoever. How many of you sent Christmas cards this year? Anybody, a few of you sent Christmas cards? I grabbed just a few from our house this morning and I brought 'em and I'm gonna show you some on the screen in a minute, but first I'll just tell you, what is on the front of these cards? There's a card here that has a snow angel, star up in the sky, maybe that's the star leading the wise man, there's a snowy field and some trees and a nice snow angel. This one is a cartoon, Mary and Joseph, baby Jesus. There they are, Joseph's got a little yellow star hanging off his staff, star that led the wise men. So that's cute. Here's a card about the wise men coming. There's the three of 'em and they have their gifts and they're coming to the manger. No Christmas would be complete without Charlie Brown. So somebody came through, you got Snoopy here and line is telling the Christmas story. Have a nice winter scene with a church down at the bottom and it's glittery, so when you open it, you get glitter bombed all over your clothes and you sparkle and shine all day long. So thank you, you'll see if any of you sent me this one. Nope, that one's somebody in Oklahoma, so blame them. Here's one of a church, a steeple, up nice. You got a snowman and then you got another snowman. And then you got pictures like this, Christmas cards where people put their picture on the front. They put their kids on the front. So we got a few people from Oklahoma on there. Let's see, K and JD Butler right here. That's a nice card. Got the Collier's, Lucas and his family. That's a nice looking card. And then this one was my favorite. It says, "Mary Christmas at the top." And it has a picture of Miss Tammy Dooley and her 101 doxons right here. So if you don't know Tammy, you know, she's got a whole bunch of dogs and they're all in this picture. You can count them, 101 of them. Actually, I think there's eight of them, but there they are. Now, here's the Christmas card I've been waiting on. You ready? John, eatin' bugs. Nobody sent me that card this year. John, eatin' crickets out in the wilderness. What about this card? John, dunkin' Jesus in the river. I think what is going on, are they wrestling? Is he trying to drown him? What kind of Christmas card is that? How about this last Christmas card? Jesus and Satan. I haven't got that one yet. I'm waitin' on it. Jesus and Satan out in the wilderness, dukin' it out. You look at those and you say, that's stupid. That's ridiculous. Those aren't Christmas cards. We want snow angels, snowmen, stars, Charlie Brown. We don't want a picture of a guy half dressed in a camel toga, eatin' crickets out in the wilderness. We don't send those kind of cards. And I will admit to you that Mark chapter one is not about the first Christmas. I will admit that. It is about Christmas. Is it about the first Christmas? Is it about Bethlehem and the nativity scene and the shepherds and the angels and all that stuff? Nope, Mark jumps right past all that stuff. But you need to understand that Mark chapter one is about Christmas. I want you to understand that God did not become man, taking the form of a servant and humbling himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. He didn't do that just so that I could have something nice to talk about in December. He didn't do that just so we'd have something nice to put on our Christmas cards that we send each December. He did it expecting a response from you. You need to understand that the story of a Christmas has a place for you. Whether you want to admit it or not or face it or not or accept it or not, you have been cast in the drama. You have a role to play in this story. And so this is on your outline. You have a part to play in the story of Christmas. It's described very plainly in Mark chapter one, verse 15, repent and believe. That's your role in the story. You don't have lines to memorize. You don't have Xs on the stage that you've got to find. This is it, it's very simple, it's very basic. Repent of your sin and believe the gospel. Repent and believe. I want to talk to you a minute about repentance. I think when we talk about believing Jesus, I think we can wrap our arms around that a little bit easier than we can the idea of repentance. And so I want to talk to you just a little bit about repentance. In the Bible, repentance is when you confess your sin to God, it's when you are broken over your sin before God. It's when you stop making excuses for your sin to God and when you turn away from your sin to follow God. All of that's wrapped up in the biblical idea of repentance. So repentance in the Bible literally means a change of mind, but you understand it's a change of mind that leads to a change in your life, okay? What happened to repentance in our churches? It wasn't all that long ago that repentance was talked about regularly from platforms, pulpits, stages, whatever you want to call them in most Baptist churches. It wasn't that long ago if you take a big historical look at things, but somewhere in the 60s and 70s, our culture kind of went through some upheaval. Some of you are to blame for that as I look around the room. And in that upheaval of the 60s and 70s, somewhere in there in all the craziness of what went on in the cultural revolution, it became out of style, out of vogue, out of fashion, untrendy, uncool, whatever you want to call it, to talk about sin and repentance. It just wasn't nice to tell somebody they were a sinner, that something that they would do or say or think would offend God infinitely. That just didn't rub people the right way. And telling people they needed to make a change in their life, that they couldn't just live their life any way they wanted to, any way they chose to, it just rubbed people the wrong way. And so this didn't happen in all churches at exactly the same time and exactly the same rate, but generally speaking, you look at churches over the last 30, 40, 50 years and you say, we just sort of stopped talking about it. We just sort of left out the parts about sin and repentance and punishment. We wanted to keep the positive stuff for crying out loud, that stuff's great. We're still gonna try to talk about Jesus and we're still gonna try to talk about love. We're still gonna talk about grace, even though we really don't understand what that means if you jettison it from sin, but we're still gonna use the word grace and mercy and we're still gonna sing the songs, amazing grace and things like that. We're all for these positive things, but these negative things, they just sort of rub people the wrong way. And so over time, we just sort of have let those things go by the wayside. Then what happened? Then people started coming to our churches and they walk in and there's never any mention of sin and there's never any mention of brokenness. And there's never any mention of wrong or hurt or the pain that comes from sin. We just sort of ignored all that and we just tried to put a smile on our face and so we'd come into church and you got your nice clothes on and you got your nice face on, you've been screaming at the family and the car on the way there, but you walk in and the first person comes up to you and they say, hey, how are you? We're great, how are you? Christmas is so wonderful. It's so good to see you. I'm so glad you're here today. You look great, did you have a good Christmas? And the other person, if they're honest, is thinking, huh, that doesn't seem like real life to me. We're not ever gonna talk about sin. We're not ever gonna talk about brokenness. We're not ever gonna talk about hurt and pain. We're just gonna try to pretend like those things don't exist and these people come into our churches, people in my generation. You can read studies on this, books on it, it's proven. They come into a church like this and they say, it's just a bunch of phony smiles. There's no realness here. Look, you can deny sin and the need for repentance, all you want, but people know that their life is not what it ought to be. They know there's things in their life that hurt. They know there's things in their life that they wanna change. They have this sense of right and wrong built into their conscience, the Bible says. And they look at this stuff that's just happy, light, easy, smiley, everything's wonderful, everything's okay and they say, one of two things are true of you people. Either you're just a faker or you're crazy. Maybe you really believe all this smiley stuff you're giving me. If so, you're nuts. Get in touch with reality. If you're not nuts, then you're just a faker. And I'm just telling you people in my generation, they look at that and they say, I don't want anything to do with that. Be real, be honest. If you had a terrible week, tell me you had a terrible week. If you blew up at your wife on the way to church, don't act like everything's put together perfectly. Can we please be honest about this? And so, this starts to boil, this starts to fester. Here's the next development, right? We've still lost sin, we've still lost repentance, but there's this uneasiness now. In churches, we're not stupid, so they eventually pick up on this. Why don't these people wanna connect? They don't think you're being real or genuine. Okay, let's be real, let's be genuine, let's be raw. We're just gonna lay it out all on the table. These are the words you hear in a lot of churches. We're just gonna be real, we're just gonna be genuine. And so, you know what they started talking about again? Sin, and mistakes, and hurt, and pain, and the consequences that come from sin. And they put all these things back on the table. You know what they left over here? Repentance, it stays here, but we wanna be honest. We wanna be raw. We're not gonna deny reality, we don't wanna be a bunch of fakers. We don't want people to think we're just crazy living in the clouds, too heavenly minded to be of any good down here on earth. So, let's be real, let's be honest, but the repentance stuff, you can't tell people how to live their life. You can't tell them that what they're doing is wrong. We're just gonna talk about sin generally, and we're all gonna admit that we're screw-ups, and we make mistakes, and that life is painful, and that's where they've left it. What you have is an accurate diagnosis with no treatment. Here's the reality, life is painful, why? Because we make stupid decisions. We do things, we say things, we think things that aren't what we ought to do, say, and think. And let's be honest about that, great. But if we're gonna get an accurate diagnosis, we might as well talk about a realistic and effective treatment, and repentance has just been left out. Listen, I don't care if it makes you comfortable or uncomfortable, if you like it or you don't like it. If it makes you wanna say amen, or it makes you just groan in your seat and wanna slide down and sneak out early. When Jesus Christ walked the earth, he demanded that every person he met do two things, not suggested, demanded. Number one, repent of your sin. Turn away from your sin. Number two, believe the gospel. You say, what is the gospel? What does he want me to believe? He wants you to believe that God is holy, holy, holy. He wants you to believe that you're a sinner, and that you're worse than you think you are. And he wants you to believe that he is the answer, that as the God-man, he died on the cross to take your place in your punishment. Turn away from your sin and turn to that in faith. He demands that every person do that. And here's the kicker. When he got ready to go back to heaven, he sat his fellows down, his disciples, and he said, look, I want you to go everywhere, and I want you to tell him the good news of the gospel. I want you to tell them, you can read it in Luke 24, you can read it in John 21, you can read it in Matthew 28, you can read it in Acts 1. Go everywhere, tell everyone that what they need to do is repent of their sin and believe in me. Repent and believe. It's very, very simple. I want you to look at Mark 1, and I want you to see the pattern that Jesus sets for us. His overarching message, Mark 1 verse 15, the time has fulfilled the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. What is the larger pattern in Mark 1? It's very simple. Number one, submission to baptism. Number two, obedience and temptation. Number three, preaching the gospel. Number four, making disciples. That's what Jesus did. That's the Christmas story in Mark 1. That's how it begins. Jesus shows up, he's baptized. He's identifying with sinners like us. He had no sin to repent of, but he's identifying with us. He's setting an example for us, he's baptized. He's obedient in the face of temptation. He doesn't just sort of make some pledge to God, pray a prayer to God, and then live however he wants to live. His life is changed by his commitment to God. His life is different than everyone else's because of his commitment to God. He's obedient. Number three, he preaches the gospel. That's verse 15. The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. Number four, he makes disciples. He starts gathering people around him and multiplying himself through them. You say, okay, that's the pattern that Jesus set, so what? Here's how it ought to apply to your life. Three very simple ideas. Number one, this pattern ought to be visible in your life. What's the pattern? Submit to baptism, obey in the face of temptation. Preach the good news, tell the story of Christmas. God is holy, man is sinful. Jesus is the answer, repent, and believe. Tell that to people and make disciples. Teach other people how to follow Jesus. That ought to be true in your life. Listen, we live in a part of the world, in a part of the United States, part of Texas, you could even say, where people are very confused about what it means to be a quote unquote Christian. There's a lot of confusion. What does it mean? Do you mean I go to church on Christmas and Easter? Yes, I'm a Christian. Do you mean I've been sprinkled as a baby? Yes, I'm a Christian. Do you mean I've been dunked as an adult? Yep, I'm a Christian. Do you mean my name is on the role of some church? Count me in. Do you mean that I've gone down to the front of a room at the end of some service and shook hands with somebody and echoed a prayer that he told me to pray? I've done that. What does Jesus say? Repent and believe. Turn away from your sin and put your faith in me. And when you do that, here's the pattern that ought to play out in your life. First, you submit yourself to baptism. Second, you begin to obey in the face of temptation. Third, you begin to share the story of what changed your life with other people who need their lives changed. Number four, you make disciples. You reproduce yourself in the lives of other people. Very, very simple. What does it mean to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus? This is the pattern that Jesus is setting for us. This is the example that he's given us. Number two, this pattern ought to be visible in our church. Same things that you read in Mark 1 ought to be true at a manual Baptist church. Can I tell you why so many people in our neck of the woods are confused about what it means to be a Christian? It's 'cause churches are confused about what it means to be a church. Very simple. They don't understand what it means to follow Jesus because they don't understand what it means to be a church. Where do they get their information? From this group and the cycle continues. And so you have churches today. You have all kinds in our neck of the woods. You have some churches whose unstated purpose is maintaining tradition and status quo. That's what we're here to do, to do it like we've always done it. Over here on this side, you've got other churches who say we're here to be innovators, to be exciting, to be cutting edge, to be different. Forget tradition, we wanna be new and relevant. That's why we're here. And then in the middle somewhere of both of those, you have churches that exist to entertain people, to give them the latest, the greatest, something that will captivate their attention, something that will give 'em a flutter in their hearts. And then mixed in there somewhere in the middle. You also have churches who just exist to be busy. At the end of the day, they're not really making disciples, they're not advancing the mission any further down the road, but they are sure busy with stuff. We have a program this night and that night and for you and for that group and for this age and for this demographic and for these families, we are really busy. Look how much we are doing. Jesus is saying, wait a minute, wait a minute, time out. Tradition, innovation, busyness, all this stuff, you're missing it. It's very, very simple. I want you to preach the gospel to the world. And when people believe it, I want you to baptize them. And once they've been baptized and they become part of your church, I want you to walk with them and help them obey in the face of temptation. And when you're done with all of that, I want you to teach them how to teach other people. That's it. Forget the busyness. Forget the tradition. Forget the being relevant and cool and hip and all that stuff. This is what you're supposed to do. And when churches forget that, here's what you wind up with. Well, I walked down front one time. Well, I went to VBS one time. Well, I got wet one time. Well, I did this, repent and believe the gospel. In this pattern, in Mark one, ought to be true in your life, ought to be true in our church. And number three, lastly, it ought to be true at Christmas. The same pattern, right? Submitting to baptism. Hopefully you've done that. Obaying in the face of temptation. Hopefully you're doing that. Sharing the good news of Christmas. The story of Christmas. God is holy, man is sinful. Jesus is the answer, repent and believe. You're sharing that. And number four, you're making disciples. Listen, God didn't move heaven and earth to come down and to walk among us and to die for us just so that at Christmas, we could hold up our candles at the Christmas Eve service and feel warm and fuzzy and admire God for what he's done. He did all of that to bring you into the story. You have a role to play in the story of Christmas. Repent and believe the gospel. Be baptized, obey in the face of temptation. Preach the good news to people that are in your life and make disciples of all nations. This is the last idea as we wrap it up. The story of Christmas is the story of God calling sinners to respond to his grace. It is not just a story to admire. It's a story to be part of and to find your place in. I wanna pray for you as we finish. Lord, I pray for the folks who are in this room. And I pray for our brothers and sisters who are traveling, they're not with us today as they celebrate Christmas with family or friends. Father, in our lives as individuals and in our life as a church, we pray for clarity. Lord, there are so many conflicting and competing ideas out there about what it means to be a Christian, about what it means to be a church. Ideas about what it means to celebrate Christmas. Ideas about who we really are and who you really are. And Father, the tragedy of it all is that sometimes we hear these voices in churches from people who claim to speak for you. Father, our prayer is that your word would speak powerfully to us as we read in Matthew and Luke and John and Mark that we would hear the story of Christmas, that we would receive it for what it is. Father, that we would find our place in your story and that we would do it by repenting of our sin and believing the gospel. Lord, we love you. You are a good God. You are a gracious God. You are a just God. As we finish up this morning, we wanna take a moment just to celebrate you and who you are and what you have done for sinners. And Father, we want to give ourselves a new this morning to loving you and following you. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.