TRANSCRIPT
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I love it the patience of a mother to be able to be strangled on camera and still just keep going with uh everything you’re supposed to say way to go aaron and rome uh ramon that’s wonderful uh welcome friends if you’re visiting my name’s alex I’m one of the pastors here it’s great to have you with us today we’re in a series though it’s called advent conspiracy uh this is the third week uh where we’ll be talking about the theme of give more now if it seems somewhat sort of contradictory to say on one week spend less and then the next week give more or will become apparent as we move on but I’m going to start with a passage we’re going to read an extended passage from the bible if you’re unfamiliar uh you can listen if you’ve got a text in front of you feel free to open it we’re going to read from luke chapter one we’re going to
start in verse 30 and we’re going to read a couple of selections and I’ll I’ll just prompt you if you want to follow through and this is going to help us tap into the the narrative of of advent so here we go first 30 but the angel said to her do not be afraid mary you have found favor with God you will conceive and give birth to a son and you are to call him Jesus he will be great and will be called the son of the most high the lord God will give him the throne of his father david and he will reign over jacob’s descendants forever his kingdom will never end how will this be mary asked the angel since I am a virgin the angel answered the holy spirit will come on you the power of the most high will overshadow you so the holy one to be born will be called the son of God even elizabeth your relative who is go is going to have a child in her old age and she who
was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month for no word from God will ever fail I am the lord’s servant mary answered may your word to me be fulfilled then the angel left her and we’re going to jump across to luke chapter 2 the next page in those days caesar augustus issued a degree that a census should be taken of the entire roman world this was the first census which took place while queerness was governor of syria and everyone went to their own town to register so joseph also went up from the town of nazareth to galilee in judea to bethlehem the town of david because he belonged to the house and line of david he went there to register with mary who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child while they were there the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn a son she
wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them and there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby keeping watch over their flocks at night an angel of the lord appeared to them and the glory of the lord shun around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them do not be afraid I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all people today in the town of david a savior has been born to you he is the messiah the lord this will be assigned to you you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel praising God saying glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests when the angels had left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one
another let’s go to bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the lord has told us about so they hurried off and found mary and joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger when they had seen him they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherd said to them but mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen which were just as they had been told let’s pray at Jesus as we gather as a community whether watching online whether here in person thank you that you’re present with us as we learn continue to shape us into the people that you want us to be we are a group of people that hope to live in your way in the way of
Jesus with the heart of Jesus may you transform us where we need transforming you breathed in this book and it became alive and as we look at it breathing us so that we might be alive in new ways thank you amen so here we go we’re going to start uh with a tale of wool so still fairly new to colorado uh still learning the ropes still doing coloradan things for the first time and my family and I we love skiing I’ve been skiing for years and years and so we bought some passes up to keystone mountain and you know we have the season ticket now but this was our first adventure up there so this week we decided on friday we’re going to take the whole family to go uh it’s going to be great we’re gonna have a great great time so up we went along I-70 this was the furthest west that we’d been we’d never been past genesee park before and and I was
told by my gps that I listened to uh carefully to get off I-70 at exit 216 which is loveland pass to get to keystone now any of you that have been to keystone know there is a much better way to get to keystone that doesn’t involve going along loveland pass but loveland pass looks something like this it has no sides to the road it just drops off into abysses it was covered in snow and the snow was still coming down and you could see almost nothing and there we went adventuring along now I if I say so myself I think we handled it fairly well we were cruising along at a steady 30 miles an hour but apparently my non-coloradan driving was not fast enough for coloradan driving and so regularly we had these people scream past us on the outside who were in a hurry to get somewhere apparently there was good snow waiting somewhere but but
we made it over the top of the mountain for no reason we could have just gone round but we went up and we went down the other side and all was well this wasn’t the bad part of the story uh we had planned this delightful day of skiing and I had pictured it looking something like this there we are you know family on the top of the mountain skiing away again my two girls ski fairly well this was not completely unoptimistic waving our poles around and and just enjoying you know the the blue sky and the mountains what I had forgotten was this we are not a family of four we’re a family of five um and the fifth member of our quintet as it were uh is this little fellow right here we’ve got a delightful little photo of him uh now he had never been skiing before so when we got there we all got our stuff on and there we are out you know ready to ski
I put his first ski on for the first time and he was positively delighted super excited I then attached the second ski and he became furious now the reason we think for this is this uh he has this show that he loves called blippi if you are a parent of young kids or a grandparent blippi is a godsend let me give you that as a free gift he just taught our kid to count to 17 or 18 and he knows every color and everything and he knows what sinks and floats all because of blippi but blippi doesn’t ski bliffy snowboards um and and and so when we put the first ski on he was fine but what he was upset about was that we didn’t attach his second foot to the first ski so when we put a second one and he was no longer like blippi suddenly a sweet little boy that looks like this some of the time turned into this raging monster so he’s still young enough that I can get
away with showing these videos of him and one day they’ll be on the internet and he’ll get to look back and see what suffering he caused and why potentially he has no other siblings other than the two he already has um but he sounds like a small t-rex calling for his mother it’s just the anger is just there and so laura’s skiing time looked like sitting on the snow holding a child consoling him well I took the two girls to do a couple of you know runs and and then we’d not skied in colorado before so our skis iced up because they weren’t waxed well enough apparently and so I spent my time stood on the side of the mountain scraping ice off the bottom of skis with a credit card until I turned to laura and said hey we gotta go we just have to write this thing off and go home and call it a day because otherwise someone’s going to get
ptsd and we’re going to leave colorado which should be like sorry south we’re done we’re out of here we got to go home um so we did and and it was the best decision that we’ve made it reminded me of this meme that’s been popular since about september that goes something like this how it started how it’s going doesn’t it just reflect 2020 how it started it may have been a dumpster to start with now it’s one on fire um there’s another option here you know the the cute romantic couple with the puppy they just bought and now no romantic couple just a girl and a dog um or how about this one how it started how it’s going it’s just that like ah and I think we’ve all felt a little bit like tom hanks at the end of this 2020 year right which the beard’s chrome we’re just we’re just a mess and that’s how I felt after a couple of hours on keystone
mountain with my kids or especially my third kid and here’s here’s what it makes me wonder we’ve just sung a ton of songs about these characters that appear in the traditional nativity story we’ve had mary and joseph we’ve had the shepherds we’ve had the the wise men otherwise known as the maggai and we’re going to take a brief look at each of these characters as we talk about this theme of give more because I have this feeling that each one of these characters will we romanticize the story and I think we’ve romanticized them as well because I suspect that each one of them in this story as we look at specific parts had this temptation to say we should just be done with this this story is insane what are we doing here where are we going what does this even look like what are we investing in there’s got to be some questions
just look at some of the cost of the story so this is mary this is her entrance into the story an angel appears to her and says do not be afraid mary you have found favor with God you will conceive and give birth to a son and you are to call him Jesus he will be great and will be called son of the most high the lord God will give him the throne of his father david and he will reign over jacob’s descendants forever his kingdom will never end how will this be mary asked the angel since I am a virgin the angel answered the holy spirit will come on you and the power of the most high will overshadow you so the holy one to be born will be called the son of God mary’s invite into this story she’s invited into just brokenness really I mean she’s a 14 maybe 15 maybe 16 year old girl who finds out she is pregnant imagine the conversations with her family
that take place imagine the sense of public shame and yet she responds with maybe the greatest faith declaration of all time this is from the message version and mary said yes I see it all now and the lord’s maid ready to serve let it be with me just as you say she jumps into God’s story with all of her heart she’s willing to sacrifice for this story and then I wonder how she feels at different points of her journey jumping in at the start is one thing but what does it mean as that story continues through nine months of child of carrying a child through the birth itself think about this moment this is in math in luke chapter two in those days caesar augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire roman world this was the first census which took place while quirinus was governor of syria and everyone went to their own
town to register so joseph also went up from the town of nazareth in galilee to judea to bethlehem the town of david bethlehem is a hundred miles from nazareth for those of you that have carried a child imagine at seven eight months pregnant suddenly your husband turns around to you and says oh by the way we’re just going to take a journey on donkey back to to a town about 100 miles away there would be no question for most of us I am not entering into that story and think about mary and her engagement in this story as she travels where am I going what am I involved in where does this story end while they were there the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth birth to her firstborn son firstborn a son she wrapped him in clothes and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them
not only is this journey 100 miles but when she gets there there is no space we know the traditional story right no room at the end and when it says that there was no guest room available what this means is that most houses of the time would have a a room that was set aside somewhat for for animals to stay and attached to the house and and they would be in there in amongst all of these animals with all the noise and we’ve romanticized that as well we think of these animals maybe sleeping peacefully or maybe just glancing over at the baby just but no this was a mess and it was smelly and for the dream of the first child it was certainly not what you were hoping for think about mary’s involvement in the story and then how about these guys and then there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby keeping watch over
their flux at night an angel of the lord appeared to them and the glory of the lord shunned round them and they were terrified but the angel said to them do not be afraid I bring you good news that will bring you great joy for all the people today in the town of david a savior has been born to you he is the messiah the lord so they hurried off and found mary and joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger they cut out on their shift they just left in the middle of the day they just said we’re done for now we’re going to find a baby and did they ever stop and wander what happens if there’s nothing there what happens if we get back and all the sheep are dead or run away or something what if we lose our position these are guys that worked for somebody who was important or wealthy they were dependent on somebody else for a living
and their story involves sacrifice as well and then these guys the magi who are super mysterious we know almost nothing about them after Jesus was born in bethlehem in judea during the time of king herod maggie from the east came to jerusalem and asked where is the one who has been born king of the jews we saw his star when it arose and we’ve come to worship him they’re astrologers part of an ancient mystic religion maybe zoroastrians or something like that and they see a star in the sky and they get up and they begin a journey and how many times during that journey did they question what they were doing as a little aside for you you can see the christmas star as it’s called for the first time in 800 years on the 21st of december it’ll be up in the sky just around sunset and it’s when ju when jupiter and saturn sort
of become really close to each other but some kind of sort of cosmic thing like this got these guys to jump up and make a journey did God put it there we don’t know did it just appear magically we don’t know how it came to be but something drew them somehow and this is incredible God chose to meet them where they were involved in the religion the practices they were that he got out of he he provided for them in that moment and there’s this prophecy back way in the old testament in a book called numbers in chapter 23 I see him but not now I behold him but not near a star will come out of jacob maybe that’s why matthew feels it’s so important to write about this star that these magi followed but for whatever reason they got up from where they were and they began this journey chasing after this star that seemed to move and
seemed like it was going to land on a particular spot this is the journey that they may have taken they probably came from either somewhere in the babylon region or perhaps down in yemen this was a road that was called the incense road travelers or tradesmen would take this road from yemen up towards egypt and up towards israel and jordan and they would sell their spices wherever they went but these guys aren’t tradesmen these guys are stargazers prophets they probably work for one of the local rulers they’re probably fairly wealthy they’re used to these beautiful terrorist terraces overlooking sunsets they’re used to warm climates and suddenly after gazing at a star they begin this journey they get up they leave their palaces and they begin to walk they begin to journey and as they would have journeyed up this pathway
and this is we’re talking about 1800 miles or something like this this was just like if laura and I were moving from new york said you know what forget about getting on a plane we’re going to get on a camel and we’re going to go to colorado that way this is the same experience that these guys had and as they got more and more northerly the snow would have been begin to be present in the hills as they made their way up in the wintertime and the climate would become something that they’d never seen before the writer t.s eliot sort of taps into this with his poem the journey of the magi a cold coming we had of it just the worst time of the year for a journey and such a long journey the ways deep in the weather sharp the very dead of winter a hard time we had of it at the end we preferred to travel all night sleeping in snatches with
voices singing in our ears saying that this was all folly eighteen hundred miles of journeying on camelback after a star and at some point there’s the question that comes up what am I following where am I going what does this look like when we get there they don’t know exactly where they’re going they turn up at a couple of towns before arriving finally in bethlehem but there’s this journey that they’re on and this must be this question that comes up is this a mistake the same question that I have on the keystone mountain the same question we all have about 2020. I think at some point curse to these guys like what what are we doing here and what we notice is that each character gives something for the story the story costs them in some way it’s not just plain sailing it’s not just easy mary gives up respectability not everyone
will believe her story the shepherds they give up job security they leave their charges in the middle of the day and just go off to find this baby and the mag eye they give gifts they give up wealth but more than anything they give the time of a journey a month’s long journey and then a return chasing after a start it costs every single one of them something and then here’s what makes the christmas story the christmas story here’s what makes it truly magical the character that does the least in the story has given the most for the story because this baby doesn’t move it’s dependent on everybody else it’s completely static and yet he is the central part of the story and as much as the rest of them have given the the Jesus story tells us that he gave more that his journey doesn’t start as a baby it doesn’t start in bethlehem or nazareth it starts at this
moment where a guard in heaven says that you were worth the journey from divinity to humanity you were the journey worth the journey from the eternity to the present now that you were worth limiting himself to the the footsteps of a human being the amount that a human being could travel in a day and ultimately worth dying for so that you could live a different story that’s what makes this story the magical that’s what makes it majestic maybe a better word than magical that’s what makes this story captivating the character that does the least in the story has given the most for the story because we understand having no power and getting power but we very rarely understand having power and giving it up and that’s what paul this new testament writer says about this story who being in very nature God did not consider
equality with God something to be used to his own advantage rather he made himself nothing the most innocent the most helpless creature this human baby that needs somebody for everything this is what God becomes in search of your heart and my heart his journey begins in the moment that he decides that that is worth the cost as much as they give to this story he has given more to this story and here’s something that I’ve just been contemplating participation in this story for us should or could cost you something or everything now for those of you that are not part of this Jesus thing you’re kind of on the fringes I’m gonna give you a space just to step aside feel free to listen in but but there’s this whole church conversation that’s gone on for years about faith versus works and I just want to just touch on that because we have this
tendency to think that well because we can’t earn what God has done for us that it won’t cost us anything and I’m not sure that’s completely accurate even paul this new testament writer will sort of tap into this idea what is more I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing christ Jesus my lord for whose sake I have lost all things I consider them garbage that I may gain christ yes the the work of Jesus is this free gift but but participation in the story it may cost you something it may cost you everything when paul looks for a word to describe this he uses this word zamir which is kind of like the connotation of you know sometimes you just have a you give a bad loan and you know you’re not getting the money back I once bought a car off one of those dealers on the side of the road and it was an audi a6 it
looked fantastic and I was sure I got a fantastic deal I paid about three and a half thousand dollars for it and the internet told me it was worth six so I was like I saved two and a half thousand dollars I really took this sucker I won uh and then I got it home and it sat on the driveway overnight and when I got up the next morning every type of fluid that could drain from a car was now over my driveway so I took it to my mechanic and said what do you think and he said it’s a really nice looking car if you spend about two and a half thousand dollars on it then you’ll have a car that’s you know drivable and worth something I didn’t take the guy at all he took me less than if you’re ever buying a car don’t buy a car off one of these guys but but I had to write off that two and a half thousand dollars it’s just done it’s just it was a bad
investment and that’s how paul talks about everything that he has given up wasn’t wasn’t worth anything compared to what I have now I’m I’m willing to write it off everything that I thought I’ve given up was worth it when we think about this nativity scene while the the traditional scene doesn’t ever happen while there is never a moment where shepherds and maggie and mary and joseph and the donkey and whoever else are gathered around the baby well that never happens every one of them does at some point in the story have a moment that’s somewhat like this where they gaze at this child and they’re like everything that I thought it cost me it was worth it it was absolutely for mary all of the journey of child birth it was worth it for the shepherds the risk of the job worth it for the mag eye the journey it was worth it this
is the end of t.s eliot’s poem and I would do it again but set down this set down this will we led all that way for birth or death there was a birth certainly we had evidence and no doubt I had seen birth and death but I thought they were different this birth was hard and bitter agony for us like death our death and we return to our palaces these kingdoms but no longer at ease here in the old dispensation with an alien people clutching their guards I should be glad of another death these magi in this story they see this baby that has been born and suddenly everything that they have thought important dies everything they have followed dies and in this moment as he gets back to his palace he’s like ah I would give everything to have that moment again to be part of that story to something about this story that has captivated them the same with the
shepherds they don’t even go back to their sheep straight away they go off shouting the news in the streets this is what we have seen there’s something about this story when you enter into it it just captivates you it grabs you in this incredible way I think this is true you give and you gain and you do it again when you give into this story when you sacrifice for this story you find that you didn’t actually lose at all that’s what every single one of these characters in our nativity drama find when they gave for the story they found it was worth it and they would do it over again you give and you gain and you do it again and here’s what I wonder I wonder if we lose some of the the wonder of what were invited into because for thousands of years religions were built around this philosophy there was priests people who sat on platforms or provided
sacrifices and there was everybody else they got to participate and you didn’t and then Jesus comes along and changes all of that and suddenly there’s this thing that now you get to participate you’re invited in peter the new testament writer says it like this but you are a chosen people a royal priesthood a holy nation God’s special possession that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light what a wonderful way to articulate what Jesus has done and it comes with this idea of a royal priesthood you are you are involved we’re invited in and that’s an amazing thing so I’d love us to just think through a little bit this idea of like well if the story has captivated us this year how might we enter into it more fully what might we give that will enable us to to connect with this story in new ways how
might we find opportunities to give in this new year so here’s a question I want to give you some practical stuff how can we give at home last week we talked about this idea of buying presents from david instead of goliath and while presents are a part of christmas that I don’t think will go away anytime soon here’s a challenge give physical presence not just lots of presents in your christmas season choose to be present with people choose to find ways to connect even though that’s difficult with this time of year this pandemic that might involve sitting in a computer in front of a computer screen for a while it might involve sitting outside around a heater it might involve being ones and twos instead of tens and twelves find ways to give presents to your family this year find ways to say I want to enter into engaging with you
but not just this here’s another stretch give emotional presence not just physical presence here’s what I find to be true about myself it’s possible for me to be present but without really being there I have this phone that I get to play and I have this ipad that I get to mess around with I have loads of sports news to keep up with I have all these things to do and it’s possible for me to be in the room without really being in the room my kids have caught on to this we have this family show that we watch together they’ve seen every episode so many times they know it by heart and now their favorite thing to do is this they’ll sit and stare at me as we watch together and every moment I get distracted every tendency I have to pick up the phone they’re like wait you’ve got to watch this part you’ve got to watch this part you they know when I’m
emotionally present or not this might involve actually practically thinking through I’m going to put my phone down when I walk through the door I’m going to leave it somewhere where I can’t get to it the emails will come but actually they may not be as urgent as you think they are you’re invited not just to be present but to be emotionally present as well and here’s a third step and this is for you that are choosing to follow Jesus and if that’s not you right now this is fine um but for those of you that are give spiritual presence not just emotional presence and this is a gentle push to you fathers particularly there’s a tendency for us as guys to to just sort of allow or force the whole spiritual development of our family onto our wives unto the mothers for some reason mothers are better at times picking up this responsibility than guys
choosing to take that responsibility at christmas to lead your family into this christmas story is actually just a privilege that you get to have this year choose to be spiritually present in this christmas season and not just emotionally present choose to take that leadership of your family and lead them through the christmas journey together give physical presence not just lots of presence give emotional presence not just physical presence give spiritual presence not just emotional presence as you give to that story I think you’ll find that it’s it’s just been worth it that it will create a different sense of God’s presence in your home this christmas season but finally what can we give at south we know that you love this community we want to give you ways and potential to serve and be part of what we do this christmas season so here’s a few
things give it yourself not somebody else God brought you here for some reason you have some gift that other people don’t have you have something that you bring that is valuable that is worthwhile and that’s a wonderful thing we have some people that work at this church on the staff team that they’re they’re weird um like they’re the sort of people that have their passports in a place where they know where they are and if you go to the drawer by the the door or the garage there’s like jumper cables and things like that and practical things that you actually might need when it snows their driveways are cleared they don’t just become iced over they have these weird orga organizational tendencies that I don’t have and they keep this place running well they keep it running smoothly because they are different to me I’m not better
they’re not better but it’s just different gifts working together and that is a wonderful thing and you you bring something don’t try and be somebody else bring what you have if you love engaging with prayer then then be involved in engaging with prayer if you love serving on a door then stand on a door with joy if you love playing music then enjoy playing music but bring who you are because you you are needed in this story give with joy and not with guilt we’re going to invite you into all sorts of giving opportunities both in terms of your time and your money because we we think that you value them but don’t do it because you feel guilty give it because God has given you the privilege of being involved in this story give out of joy and not out of guilt we’re doing end of year giving and we’re going to talk in a second about our
christmas eve offering but it’s supposed to be a joyous thing not a guilt driven thing give to a story that is bigger than you this is what we see in this nativity story right every single one of them with all their sacrifices finds that they’ve suddenly landed in a story that is bigger than they could possibly have imagined possible a story that is changing the world and south is just a little part of that story in a little part of the world and yet it’s where God has called each of us that calls south home it’s where he’s called us to land in this season we’d love to invite you into helping south do what south is helping other people do in the world around us so we’re going to finish by watching this video that’s going to introduce our christmas eve giving opportunity none of this money is going to south it’s all going directly to help another organization so here
we go we’re tyler and amy maxwell we’ve been serving in nairobi kenya for the last six years working with street boys so a street boy is a boy or a young man who lives out on the street these boys have no place to live they scrape for their food they look through the trash for recyclables to sell to buy things and they’re really shunned by the community the community thinks that they are the least of the least there’s an estimated 100 million street children worldwide in kenya we estimate there’s 500 000 street boys so it’s definitely not a kenya problem it’s a worldwide problem 2020 has proven to be quite challenging for both our family and for the ministry in kenya like we know it has been for many of you as well in kenya the government restrictions have made it quite difficult to gather in large groups while we work
with the boys and girls on the street but we have adapted our ministry to continue working with them daily one of the challenges that we found quite difficult is having a location where the boys and girls can come and get away from the street be themselves we can feed them they can bathe and we can share the word of God with them when you’re depending on other people’s uh property to do your ministry it becomes very frustrating and challenging we’ve responded to that challenge now we’re looking for a piece of land where the boys can come seven days a week they can hear the the word of God we can feed them they can get away from the violence on the streets and it’s just a place that they can feel free and it’s their place our passion and desire is to see the lives of these boys and girls transformed for christ and we
believe that having this type of center where they can encounter the love of christ is an essential part the street ministry is how we’re able to get these kids off the streets and their lives turned around currently we have 10 kids off the street eight of them are boys and two of them are girls five of these are in high school and five of these are in vocational training and 2020 has been mostly online learning but the kids are looking forward to having in person school starting in 2021 our goal in 2021 is to double that number we want to have 20 kids off the street in school and vocational training school in kenya is not free we pay somewhere between 1200 and 1500 per kid per year we want to thank south fellowship for being a huge part of this ministry and playing that role and transforming the lives of these kids in swahili we
want to say and moon that means we are blessed by all of you and God bless you all so we’ve been as a community community supporting tyler and amy for a while as they continue to work out there this year we’ve chosen them to receive our christmas eve offering we would love to take this goal that they have of buying a piece of land to be able to do this ministry more completely to provide this safe space as something that we would love to help them on the journey through so that’s where all of our christmas eve offering is going if we can do that for them man what a story of transformation what a way for us to enter into a bigger story this year so we’d love to present that to you as something for you to consider you can go online at southfellowship.org stroke give there’s a drop down menu that allows you to give to the
christmas eve offering you can give it our christmas eve services if you’d like to do it that way as well but thank you for participating in south’s calling to be part of the biggest story in the world around us I’m going to invite aaron and the team back on stage we’re going to close with some prayer Jesus thank you for your incredible story thank you for each character that comes into it each character that just must have at some point questioned whether this was all folly and yet we see this wonderful moment where they experience the birth you experience your entry your incarnation into this world and it seems like that moment creates the sense of ah it was all worth it I would do it again thank you for your calling to us to immerse ourselves in the story may we connect with that story in new ways this christmas seasonperhaps you haven’t chosen
to follow Jesus for yourself maybe you’re watching online maybe you’re here in person you can jump into this Jesus story this year you can in this moment say ah I definitely have this tendency that all of us have to go my own way the whole purpose of Jesus coming was to lead us back into a better story he gave his life for each of us that we could have a different life that we could have forgiveness that we could have a new relationship with God you’re invited into that you don’t have to do anything it may cost you something you may lose something something that you find very important but he comes and gives it as a free gift all you have to do in this moment is ask for his help in going in his direction and we’d love to know if you did that
for the rest of us may we be challenged by how we give this christmas may we jump into opportunities to serve here itself for those of you that are registered for christmas eve we would love to have your help come to one service but help at another service jump in and help support tyler and amy let’s provide some land for these incredible boys in kenya to be able to experience a different quality of life let’s embrace the challenge that God has for us as a community thank you Jesus you’ve been present with us amen
