Christmas is just around the corner, can you believe it? But the sad reality is that domestic violence will again spike sharply over the Christmas period. Can you believe that? Well, too often, anger spills over during the holidays, so I thought that this week, we’d share in a timely word on anger management. 

THE ROOT PRODUCES THE FRUIT

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but when a seed falls to the ground and dies, ultimately it sprouts and takes root.

And if it was the seed of a plum tree – we can be pretty certain that the thing that’s growing there is going to one day produce – not apricots, not apples, not pears…..we all know, it’s going to produce plums.

Because it’s a plum tree that’s taken root. In fact, the root produces the fruit.

It’s just one of those basic facts of life that actually we don’t have to think about. The root determines the fruit.

And it’s a bit like that in our hearts. IF our hearts take root in goodness then we’ll produce good fruit. In bad things and we’ll produce bad fruit.

In sweet things and we’ll produce sweet fruit. In bitter things – and we’ll produce bitter things.

This is not rocket science – right?

This week on the program….Want to take a look at the phenomenon of anger in our society and in our lives.

Anger is a real phenomenon in the hearts of so many people. Pressure building up in life – people explode.

Like a pressure cooker – vent the steam otherwise it blows up. It’s the same with people – so many people venting their anger – epidemic proportions.

• Road rage
• Supermarket rage
• Call centre rage

In fact, this weeks program is prompted by a real-life experience.

Stan the painter. He was doing some work at our little terrace house. Painting a few walls – at the same time, he was doing a big job in one of the wealthiest streets in the country.

Huge mansion – special paint $1,000 a tin – unbelievable – houses in the street worth $15-$25 million – mega wealthy. Lots of people having building work done in that street – narrow street – yet great views, massive mansions…unbelievable

Been working there for a few weeks now – and he was telling me – “You wouldn’t believe the strife between the neighbours – house I’m working on – 70 year old woman – hasn’t talked with her neighbour for 20 years. Argument over some building work.

All the neighbours are fighting… the woman I’m working for – done some work before – but now she’s so mean and nasty and swears.”

Stand back from that – unbelievable… these people have everything in life – nothing they can’t buy or have or own really… everything their heart desires

Yet there’s – well a spirit of anger and bitterness and dissension…

Makes you wonder – what’s going on here. We, like Stan and his brother Douk – two Greek painters, lovely people do a great job. Honest as the day is long – wonderful men.

How can this woman be so nasty to them?

Anger and bitterness has taken root in her heart. That’s why. You let things get to you and get angry with people over and over and over again – like bitterness takes root in your heart. The root produces the fruit.

God actually talks a lot about anger – you know it’s a word that pops up 375 times in the Bible – makes it one of the leading subjects.

Anger is something that we all have to deal with – and it springs up, out of a root of bitterness.

The writer of the book of Hebrews in the NT – puts it like this:

Hebrews 12:14-15.

Pursue peace with everyone – and holiness – because without them you won’t get so much as a glimpse of God. Make sure that no one misses out on the grace of God, so that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble – because through it, so many will be contaminated

See – there it is – the root produces the fruit.

The root of bitterness takes hold in our hearts… it springs up and causes trouble and contaminates everyone around us.

We all have a problem with anger some days – some more than others… the longer we let it go on, the more it takes hold and produces bitterness – and a bitter root produces bitter fruit.

A root – is something we cultivate and if we don’t want it to keep growing – have to stop feeding it.

Be angry but do not sin – do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not make room for the devil. (Ephesians 4:26)

We all get angry from time to time – that’s not the sin – the sin is letting the sun go down on your anger – keeping it in your heart, brooding, planning revenge, going over it and over it and over it and over it…

The right way of handling it is just – get over it. Forgive and move on. Then, then we won’t be cultivating the root of bitterness which – sure as God made little green apples – will produce fruit of bitterness.

Not something we can do on our own though – I believe we need an antidote to this venom… something that heals and cleanses and just gives us a fresh perspective – let’s go back to that earlier quote….

Pursue peace with everyone – and holiness – because without them you won’t get so much as a glimpse of God. Make sure that no one misses out on the grace of God, so that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble – because through it, so many will be contaminated.

DEALING WITH A HOT TEMPER

Let’s get down to practicalities… dealing with anger, dealing with that rising temper. When someone provokes us – you know they do something and you can feel your blood boiling and you go all red in the face… right at that moment, it’s so easy to spit out something venomous – words that we can’t take back. Words that damage a relationship. People even throw something – do something…

Sometimes, when we’re provoked, we can be a bit quick on the draw when it comes to responding. Let me share a story with you:

I remember once as a consultant – some years back now – used to run an IT consulting group 

I was being mucked around by a large and important client of a particular ethnic heritage…..dealing with them for months to try to kick off a project – meant a lot of money – large, global organisation. After months of investing time and effort with the management… they pulled the plug on the project.

Received an e-mail from one of the consultants working with me – info about the client – explaining that the organisation had decided not to go ahead. I blew my stack – sitting in my office reading the e-mail – couldn’t believe that they’d wasted so much of our time and resources – not fair – losing so much revenue.

I had a few choice sentiments that I almost expressed in reply to that e-mail to my fellow consultant – even typed an angry e-mail… just about to send it I thought better of it and sent a benign e-mail instead.

Just as well, I hit the “Reply to All” button and the e-mail ended up with the client as well as my colleague!!! Gulp.

Can you imagine – my thoughts of anger included some pretty vitriolic stuff about their ethnicity too.

Berni – why are you sharing this with us? Simple – we all go through this sort of thing – day by day. People, organisations, circumstances drive us insane and we want to explode.

Just the other day – a neighbour – asked them to turn their loud music down… not so hard.

Simple thing – their music was too loud. Obviously never been taught to take other people into account.

The vitriol – now he just ignores me Berni – just asked him to turn it down.

You know what I wanted to do? Just explode at him! Just tell him what I really thought. Teach him a lesson. Teach him some manners. You know this feeling don’t you? And then – HE ignores ME – he was the one that did the wrong thing.

EXPLODING is never a good thing. Never. But it’s something we all experience. Some more than others. Some – like on a hair-trigger. Anything will set them off. Anger and tantrums are ugly things.

Talking about it on the program this week – Anger Management

Some great, practical input from God’s Word today

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. (James 1:19-21)

Practical – special – God’s solution.

Slow to speak and slow to become angry.

SLOW DOWN – you don’t have to react now this instant and rip someone’s head off.

Maybe this is where that piece of advice came from – “count to ten”.

Nine times throughout the Bible you’ll find these words – or ones very similar

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. (Psalm 103:8)

What a great concept – three parts

1. 1. Slow to anger…just hold up for a minute and cut this person some slack for the man who wouldn’t turn his music down.
   2. Abounding in steadfast love and compassion – pray for the guy.
   3. Slow to speak – just don’t say anything – don’t defend, or assert, or criticise, or judge, or belittle, or shout or scream or anything – don’t. Instead, be slow to speak.

Not easy. It begins with a change in heart. Begins by deciding that my anger is a problem. Begins by resigning from the position of tin-pot little god and centre of the universe, begins by deciding the world doesn’t owe me…

Being slow to anger and slow to respond….and when we do respond, what should we say

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (Proverbs 15:1) 

Wisdom – God’s wisdom – hard some days to bite our lip Hard sometimes to respond in love – each time becomes easier. Each time heals relationships – people notice this and one day, relationship so strong, have the ability to influence this person who hurt us with the love of God. 

LEAVE IT TO GOD

Anger is one of those basic facts of life. And in many respects – it’s a natural reaction to a whole range of situations.

Sometimes we think that anger in and of itself is wrong.

Not so – God gets angry – so either God’s a sinner or anger in itself isn’t a sin.

Hmm – makes you think doesn’t it?

I passionately believe that Jesus Christ came and died for my sins and that He was and is utterly perfect – a perfect sacrifice to pay for my sins.

And yet, when He went to the temple in Jerusalem and saw that they’d turned it into a bazaar, He was angry. He made a whip and turned over the tables and drove the traders out of the temple with a whip.

Of course God is a loving God. But God is also a God of anger and ultimately of punishment.

So is anger right or wrong in our lives? And what do we do with anger?

Let’s take a look at the anatomy of anger – basically goes like this:

• I’ve been wronged by someone.
• I, therefore, feel angry.
• They owe me some recompense.
• So – I will respond in anger, to obtain vengeance.

In a sense comes out of our sense of justice

Of course – as we’ve seen on the program this week, we can have quite a distorted sense of justice. We can be touchy and selfish and throw tantrums.

And so even though actually, we haven’t been wronged, they’ve just fallen short of our expectations or we’re just being selfish – we feel wronged, and then the anger, justice, vengeance thing takes hold.

Sometimes, people do things that are clearly wrong – and we are angry.

Question is how we respond? Before the break, read this passage from NT book of:

Ephesians 4:26 – Be angry but do not sin – do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not make room for the devil. 

In other words – sometimes we are angry – the question is whether we dwell on it and let it fester overnight and tomorrow and over and over and over – making room for the devil to distort our sense of justice and then this root of bitterness takes hold in our lives? Or whether we, like God are 

compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. ( Psalm 103:8)

See anger in itself isn’t a sin. God is angry with those who turn their backs on Him – Judges 2:12-15

They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. In his anger against Israel the LORD handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.

And yet the wonder of God is that He is slow to anger – and ready to forgive. But ultimately when we harden our hearts and our ways against Him, we experience His anger.

So how do we make sense of all this? God gets angry but we shouldn’t? Remember – anger has it’s root in our sense of justice. That much we get from God – because we’re made in His image. God is never angry without just cause.

The problem is we can’t say the same thing about us. Our justice gyroscope is so often out of balance. And then when we do experience anger – we want to wallow in it and work it over and over and seek revenge – making room for the devil.

Anger is a natural reaction and in some cases – it’s the right reaction. Problem is when we’re the injured party, our sense of justice is questionable at best and wacky at worst. So what do we do? Romans 12:17-21

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

In other words – leave the justice thing to God. His sense of justice so much better than ours – and in any case who knows what He’s up to in that person’s life? Only He does.

Someone hurts us – the initial reaction may be anger… the same anger that God feels when He sees injustice. The thing that’s wrong is repaying that evil with evil.

Don’t take revenge – leave room for God to act. Instead, bless the enemy – God’s grace may kick in through us and bring that person to Christ. We may never see justice… but then that’s why Jesus died for you and me – so unjust – justice meets love on the cross. That’s called grace.

Grace is shown to you and me – a grace He now calls us to show to others. Yes – you and I will experience anger from time to time – not to repay evil with – leave that bit to God – forgive, forget, live life to the full and bless people with the grace that’s been shown to us….not a bad plan when you think about it.

Well, here we are again, it’s December. It’s almost the end of another year and it’s almost Christmas time, again. It happens year after year. Christmas. The question is, what do you make of it, what do you do with it? It’s an age-old problem, Christmas.

THE PROBLEM WITH CHRISTMAS

I don’t know if you’ve ever thought of this but Christmas is a real problem for guys like me, preachers I mean. Year after year, we have to crank out yet another Christmas series. And for the first few years, that’s pretty easy but then after a while you start thinking to yourself, “Well, how am I going to put a new twist on Christmas this year?”

Last year, I approached it from this perspective, the year before from that perspective, the year before that from … well, you get the picture. There are only so many different perspectives on Christmas. Well, we’ve all been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Yeah, so it’s Christmas again, so what?

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere it’s an excuse for a few days off.

If you live in the Southern Hemisphere as I do, it’s probably the summer holidays that you’re looking forward to more than Christmas itself. A chance for a decent break, a bit of a much-needed R and R and sure Christmas is part of that but the Christmas bit can be a bit of a hassle. Buying presents, figuring out who has Christmas lunch with whom and then perhaps scooting off to Christmas dinner with another part of your family. Kids, uncles, aunts, grandparents – it all gets complicated. And then there’s the fact not everybody in the family gets on. You know Christmas day is one of the peak times of the year for domestic violence.

Even if it doesn’t get that bad you know there are going to be clashes or you’re going to have to smile sweetly at someone that you don’t really like or you just know that so and so is going to have too much to drink again this year.

Those are the burdens that many people carry into Christmas, it’s just the reality of life. So as things turn out, Christmas isn’t just a problem for preachers like me who have to dream up something fresh and new each year, it’s a problem for many, many people. I heard someone say once, a Bible believing Christian she was, “I hate Christmas, I wish we could just skip over it.” It’s pretty sad but it’s the reality for many people even those who actually believe in Jesus. So Christmas gets something of a bad rap, I wonder how many people who are out there who would just love to skip Christmas. I wonder?

Well, as you look ahead to the next ten days or so in the run up to Christmas, I wonder how you’re feeling about it all, exhausted, frustrated, anxious, stressed. What are the emotions that generally accompany this thing we call Christmas in your heart in your life? What are you feeling? Is Christmas a problem for you?

Can I be honest here? I struggle with the kids pantomime version of Christmas. I struggle with the whole Carols by Candlelight phenomenon around Christmas where people get together in parks and sing Christmas carols as though they believe them, when most of the entertainers up on the stage and on our television screens don’t have the remotest faith that Jesus is actually the Son of God.

It’s like we wrap this whole Christmas in tinsel and lights and tie a neat bow around it. And we make it out to be this happy time, when the truth is, for many people, well, they struggle with Christmas. Now I don’t mean to be a Christmas Grinch here. Personally, I love singing Christmas carols because they mean something to me but what I really want to know is why don’t we sing Christmas carols all year round? Why don’t we celebrate the coming of Jesus all year round?

I remember hosting a Christmas in July service at our Church some years back. It’s a bit of a phenomenon down under as many restaurants put on Christmas dinners in the middle of winter when it’s cold and at the service we actually sung Christmas carols. I can’t tell you the number of people who came up to me afterwards and told me how weird it was singing Silent Night in the middle of July.

Yeah, we wrap a whole bunch of rituals up in a nice neat package in December and we call it Christmas. And it’s all supposed to be sweetness and light and yet how much of it really, really, really speaks into our hearts about the wonder of what God did on that first Christmas?

What I want to do today is to unsettle you, to drag you out of your Christmas ritual comfort zone and ask you, “Why do you do what you do at Christmas time? Why are you racing around buying presents for people who don’t really need anything? Why do you put tinsel and Christmas decorations around your house and maybe even a Christmas wreath on your front door? What are the candles and the Christmas tree and presents and all that food really about? What do you do it for?”

If you stripped away all that packaging and paraphernalia what would Christmas actually be for you? Luke 2: 8-14:

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them, “don’t be afraid, for see I am bringing good news of great joy for all people. For to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

“This will be a sign for you, you’ll find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger” and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, “glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favours.”

So if you took the packaging and the paraphernalia and the ritual and the racing around away, is that what Christmas would mean to you? Would you in your heart shout out, “Glory to God in the highest heaven. Glory, glory, glory. Hallelujah?” Because if not, don’t you think you just might be wasting your time with all this Christmas nonsense that you go through each year?

All this pressure you put yourself under, all these presents you buy and the money you spend and the decorations you put up and the food that you stuff yourself with – is that what Christmas is all about?

Or in your heart, is it about the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God to be the Saviour of this world? The biggest Christmas gift of all history – the Son of God given to all humanity, given to you and given to me.

So let me ask you, what is your Christmas all about?

THE PROPHECIES OF OLD

I guess when it comes to this whole Christmas thing; we see it from where we sit. And for most of us, our perspective (our take on Christmas) comes through the ritual that surrounds it – a ritual that we’ve acted out year after year for as long as we can remember.

Sure, it’s changed a bit. When we were kids it was all about the excitement of presents. But you know the deal, you know all the things that you do in the weeks leading up to Christmas, you know how Christmas Day is going to pan out. You know the carols you’re going to sing and the food that you’re going to eat and the people you’re going to celebrate Christmas with. If it’s at all possible, this exciting celebration of Christmas has become something of a routine for you. A bit of a contradiction but it’s true for most of us, life is full of contradictions right?

When it comes to Christmas we kind of narrow our view, we lower our gaze and focus on the well-worn familiar path of the Christmas ritual. Whatever that looks like for each one of us, we narrow our perspective and like Pavlov’s dogs we get on with that part of life and in many respects, that’s how it was on that very first Christmas two thousand odd years ago. Although it wasn’t called Christmas back then. In fact, the first record of there being some celebration of Christmas doesn’t appear until 354 AD, three and a half centuries after the birth of Jesus.

And of course many of the modern-day traditions of Christmas that we celebrate on December 25th – for instance, eating turkey, having a Christmas tree, Santa Claus, presents, tinsel, lights, all of those are much, much more recent. In fact, the Christmas ritual that you and I take for granted today, as though it’s been around forever, is little more than a hundred years old, it’s a bit of a surprise, isn’t it?

But let’s wind the clock back even further to that first Christmas. People by and large were just going on with their daily business. The big news in town was of course the census. The Romans had ordered a stock take of all the people and in the absence of the technology we use today, the way you did it back then was to go back to your ancestral home.

And in the case of Joseph and therefore Mary, his embarrassingly pregnant betrothed, that meant going back to Bethlehem. The inns were full, the shepherds were out doing what shepherds did, tending their flocks in the field by night. Other than the disruption of the census, it was pretty much business as usual. And then wham, the light show in the skies in front of these shepherds. God broke into that “business as usual” in a spectacular way. You know what, I’m praying for this Christmas, God is going to break into your “business as usual” in a spectacular way too.

All these people were just living their lives, just like we do, head down, doing stuff that they did day after day when all along God had promised a Saviour.

There are quite a number of prophecies in what we now call the Old Testament (the Scriptures to the Jewish people) of the coming of a Saviour and principle among them is that He would be born in Bethlehem, Micah 5: 2-5:

But you O Bethlehem of Ephrathah who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel whose origin is of old from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labour has brought forth then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel and he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God and they shall live secure for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth and he shall be the one of peace.

The prophecy of the coming of the Saviour in great power in this tiny humble little village of Bethlehem and by the way the word Bethlehem means literally “the house of bread”. Remember how Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.”

How appropriate that He should be born in Bethlehem – the house of bread. And then there was the prophecy that He would be born to a virgin, now that’s pretty outrageous when you think about it, Isaiah chapter 7:14:

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look the virgin woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel which means ‘God is with us.

And that is, of course, exactly what happened. There are quite a few more prophecies about the birth of Jesus that were given centuries before that He fulfilled – His lineage, the slaughter of the infants by Herrod, His need to flee to Egypt. The bottom line was that there were plenty of signs, plenty of prophecies, plenty of predictions.

Okay they were cryptic. I mean God revealed His Son in mystery and wonder. We always try to analyse God and put Him in a box. We try and figure out how He operates and then make a bunch of rules about Him. But you can’t do that with God. He does startling, creative, outrageous things like sending His Son, Jesus as the son of a carpenter in humble circumstances in some shed out the back of Bethlehem.

But the picture was always there, the big plan was always there. God had given some predictions about what was going to happen even as way back as His promise to Abraham. Right back there in the first Book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, God said to him, “Through you all nations shall be blessed” pointing forward to Jesus. But the people were just chugging along, business as usual and it was difficult (if not, impossible) for many of them to see, to perceive, to understand. Not all of them had the light show like the shepherds and the wise men.

As I look at the world today, it seems to me that still today most are asleep to what God did back then and what God is doing now. The only difference is that we know the whole story, we know what was going on and how it ends.

So as this Christmas approaches, you find yourself asleep to the wonder of what God is doing then let me say to you with all love and with all care, “Wake up. Don’t be asleep through yet another Christmas.” The wonder and the power of what God did back then, the doors that He opened for you through the coming of Jesus, the joy of what He brings to you today, the unspeakable glory that He opens up through His Son for you to spend eternity with Him, why would you want to sleep through that? Why would you want to be blind to that?

Those prophecies of old which is the faintest hint of what was to come. But now we know, now we can see … the sheer wonder.

THE REALITIES OF LIFE

There is something incredibly powerful about “business as usual”. If you think about how your life has played itself out, so far, I suspect that it’s been ninety nine percent humdrum and about half a percent of wonderful mountain top joy and another half a percent of tragedy and loss.

Sure, some people seem to have better lives than others. Some are born rich, some are born poor and very sadly for some people life is one long tragedy. I wish I could wave a magic wand and take all that away for those people who find themselves in that boat. But I just can’t and yet for most of us, most of our lives are occupied by the normal every day, business as usual, monotony which consumes most of our time, most of our attention and most of our focus. Am I right?

But beneath that monotony there is always, always, always a sneaking suspicion that there must be more. You’ve had that feeling, right? This sense that something is oppressing you, something is sidling you out of the sort of life that you think you should be living. There are in fact very few people on planet earth today that don’t have that feeling.

I used to have it but I don’t have it anymore. I’ve always been someone who’s tried to get out there and live life to the full. And all along, as hard as I tried, something was missing, things weren’t quite right and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I want to wind the clock back to what was going on in the history of Israel around when Jesus was born. Not just the history of the nation but the lives of the ordinary people like you and me. In fact there’s a particular bunch of guys I want to focus on because they, to me, exemplify this “business as usual” but something was not quite right in their world. What am I yabbering on about here? I’m talking, of course, about the shepherds who were out watching their flocks by night.

Now, no doubt you’ve sung the Christmas carol many times and heard their story many times. By the way, the fact that they were out there watching their flocks by night makes it pretty certain that Jesus wasn’t born in December, Israel’s winter. Average December maximums of fifteen degrees Celsius or around sixty degrees Fahrenheit and of course nights were quite a bit cooler.

So in winter they generally brought their sheep into town where there was a communal pen where they were cared for overnight. So even though we celebrate Christmas in December, it probably didn’t happen then on the first Christmas.

Anyhow, here were these guys living out their “business as usual” tending their flocks by night but they weren’t living as free men, they were living as men in an occupied country. The Romans of course had occupied and ruled most of the known world back then. And in fact, the Romans had been the rulers for the last sixty or seventy years in Israel.

Now, in the overall history of Israel that’s pretty short but for those shepherds it was all that they could remember. The Romans were tough task masters and what made it even harder for the Israelites is that they knew they were God’s chosen people. They knew they were meant to be free and so they expected, kind of, sort of, maybe one day for God to send them a King – a Messiah, as He was called back then, God’s anointed King – in order to boot the Romans out and restore the kingdom of Israel, to set God’s people free. After all, God had done it before.

He’d set them free from captivity in Egypt. He’d set them free from captivity in Babylon. He’d set them free from the Seleucid Empire through the Maccabean Revolt only a century and a half before. That was their simplistic understanding of what should be going on.

So there they were, business as usual. But something wasn’t quite right, they were oppressed and that simply wasn’t the way it should have been. They were being robbed of the freedom, the life that they knew they were entitled to as God’s chosen people. Does that sound vaguely familiar to you? Does that sound like anyone that you know?

Now, people back then were kind of expecting this Messiah to come. But when you and I used this term “Messiah” we think of Jesus, right? That’s not who they were thinking about at all. They were thinking more about a strong warrior king, someone like King David of old who could muster an army, defeat the Romans and set the people free. After all, isn’t that what God promised to David years before? 2 Samuel 7: 12 and 13, He said to David:

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come forth from your body and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

So in effect, they were looking in the wrong direction for a saviour because they misinterpreted what God was on about. They thought they were going to get another King David. Again a bit like, in fact a lot like people today, that’s what was going on in the popular consciousness of ordinary people like those ‘business as usual’ shepherds back then and in many respects it’s what’s going on in the popular consciousness of ordinary people today.

People are looking for someone or something to set things right. They know that life is not all it should be so they turn to money or career or reputation or luxury or holidays or friends, you name it. They turn to it expecting “it” to make things better but it never does.

People have been looking in the wrong direction for a Saviour for thousands of years just like those shepherds and then God breaks into the world with such power and with such might and in such a surprising way that we can’t even begin to imagine what He’s up to. Luke 2: 8-14:

In that region were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them, ‘don’t be afraid for see I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people. To you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord.

This Messiah, this Saviour, He wasn’t what they expected Him to be – He still isn’t what we expect Him to be. What are you expecting Jesus to be? As we roll inexorably towards Christmas, yet again, what are you expecting to discover or are you so busy looking in a different direction that you’re going to miss this amazing surprise in Jesus?

Or are you running away as I was for many years because like the shepherds I was kind of afraid? This idea of God breaking into history by becoming one of us is too startling and too incomprehensible to begin to make sense.

Just listen with me quietly to what the angel went on to say to those startled, frightened, ‘business as usual’, confused shepherds. Luke 2: 15 – 20:

This will be a sign for you, you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.

And so …

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one another, ‘let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place which the Lord has made known to us’. So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and a child lying in a manger.

When they saw this they made known what had been told to them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told to them. (Luke 2: 15 – 20)

Seems to me that you and I, like the shepherds, have a choice. We can continue to get on with business as usual, stay in our field and ignore Jesus. Or, we can go and check Him out for ourselves.

The only question that I’d ask is this; so how well has your ‘business as usual’ worked out for you so far?

I don’t know if you’ve ever thought of this, but on the surface of things, Christmas was a crazy idea! I mean, what exactly was God thinking by sending His Son to become a man – and then to be born in some drafty, smelly shed out the back of Bethlehem? 

CHRISTMAS IS A CRAZY IDEA

Yeah, absolutely, on the surface of things, Christmas is a crazy idea. I mean stand back and think about it … God’s God, He created the whole universe. Okay, He’s Father and Son and Holy Spirit, three persons in one, something that’s not that easy to wrap your mind around. But let’s just leave that to one side for the moment.

God is God. God creates everything. We read about it in the first few chapters of the Book of Genesis. It’s pretty straightforward description of what He did and it was amazing. And the crowning glory of all His creation is humanity – you and me, male and female. And the very last thing that He does before He rests to enjoy His handiwork of creation is that He hands the whole thing over to us. God said:

Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind, cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind and it was so and God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind and the cattle of every kind, everything that creeps along the ground of every kind and God saw that it was good.”

Then God said, ‘Let us make humanity in our image according to our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’

So God created humanity in His image, in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them. God blessed them and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue the earth and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over every living thing that moves on the earth.’

God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit, you shall have them for food and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to every thing that creeps on the earth, everything that has breath of life I have given every green plant for food’ and so it was.

God saw everything that He’d made and indeed it was very good and there was evening and there was morning of the sixth day. (Genesis 1: 26-31)

So far, so good. Adam and Eve go and enjoy all of this amazing creation but God does one thing, just one thing that is so crazy, inexplicable.

The Lord commanded the man, ‘you may freely eat of every tree of the garden but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall die. (Genesis 2:16)

Well, you know the rest. They couldn’t help themselves, Adam and Eve, they just had to try to be like God. They ate from that one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the rest as they say is history.

Sin entered the world, sickness entered the world and just as God had promised them death entered the world. Life became hard. That’s something you and I can attest to – life is hard and all because God had to forbid them that one tree and they just had to try it anyway. Could it be all of your misery and mine hangs on just that one crummy apple? For Pete’s sake, that’s nuts!

And then as humanity spirals ever downward, as we become ever more debauched and depraved, after that moment God mounts a rescue mission – He sends Jesus to save us. What’s that about? Why didn’t He just give them access to every last tree? Why did He have to hold that one tree back from them and why did they have to blow it for the rest of us and after all that, why did God mount that rescue mission and send Jesus?

It defies human logic until you realise that love and logic have nothing more in common than their first two letters. Love isn’t logical. Have a listen to this:

But the free gift is not like the trespass for if the many died through one man’s trespass, Adams, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift and the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man’s sin for the judgement following the one trespass brought condemnation but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification.

If because of the one man’s sin death has exercised dominion through that one much more surely will those who receive the abundance of the grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore just as one man’s trespasses lead to condemnation for all so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.

For just as by one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. But the law came in with the result that the trespass multiplied but when sin increased grace abounded all the more. So just as sin exercised dominion in death so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. (Romans 5: 12 – 21)

There you have it. There you have the reason that God did what He did. If you love someone you give them free will, right? He gave Adam a free will by excluding that one tree and Adam chose against God and so sin, with all its consequences, entered the world for you and me.

Now, before you think to yourself, “I am going to punch Adam in the nose when I see him in heaven.” Ask yourself, if nobody in all of history before you had sin and ultimately you were living in that garden, would you have resisted the temptation?

So sin entered the world through one man and forgiveness came though one man as well, Jesus. God sent Him into this world as that little babe we remember each year around this time so that we could be forgiven. And notice how that ‘grace‘ word comes in. Forgiven by the free, unmerited favour of God so that we could know what? God’s love.

What greater expression of love is there than to forgive someone who doesn’t deserve it? I guess only one, to do it and to take his or her punishment on their behalf, to give your life to suffer in order to purchase their forgiveness and their freedom. To step out of heaven into this hurly-burly of a sinful world and be punished even though you’d never done anything wrong.

And this is not as some Plan B because Plan A didn’t work. This was always Gods Plan A. God always knew Adam would blow it. He always knew that you and I would blow it. None of that was ever a surprise to Him and yet out of His great love, He gave us a free will to accept or reject Him. And out of His great love, He came to purchase us back from death by offering up His Son as His sense of justice demanded – to take all the fall for you and for me, to pay the price, to die the death.

Now, I know you have a lot going on in these days leading up to Christmas – those last-minute presents to buy, the things to clear off your desk perhaps before you have a few days off, the turkey to buy, the decoration to get up, all that stuff.

Now I know that you may not have a lot of time to think about this Christmas stuff but at the heart of Christmas lies a Father’s love. At the heart of Christmas – in the most unhygienic, feed trough called a manger, in that even more unhygienic stable filled with animals, right where that child was born and lay and cried and gurgled – is a love so sublime that there are not enough words to describe it. There are no words ever invented that can really explain a love so great.

So as you hurtle towards yet another chaotic Christmas, let me say to you quietly, kindly, gently, ‘Take a moment to wrap your heart around that love. Just let that love touch you deep inside and change you and change your life and change your world.”

After all, what do you have to lose?

YOU WON’T DIE ALONE

I know, it’s kind of a weird perspective from which to come at the story of Christmas, but hopefully as we chat together, it will start to make sense.

Death … dying is pretty much the one taboo subject left in our society. We can talk about pretty much anything else but not dying. And the last thing that you and I really want to think about is dying. But humour me because I want you to put yourself on your deathbed. Hopefully, quite a few years away from now, and imagine how you’ll feel. Would you be afraid of dying alone? I’m guessing you would particularly in a hospital room, sterile, white, disinfected, clinical, with tubes coming out of you, those squeaky sounds the nurses shoes make on the floor. The idea of being completely alone at the end is a terrible thought.

Now and then, you hear about an elderly person who died all alone in their home and their body wasn’t discovered for seven or eight years. That’s frightful. Imagine how the end must of come for them. Of course, you don’t have to wait to die in order to be alone.

So many people are desperately alone, sometimes through circumstances but mostly as a result of their sin. That may sound a bit weird but sin – turning our backs on God and going our own way usher’s in death very quickly. That’s what God promised Adam and Eve would happen if they ate from that one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that he forbade them to eat from.

The Lord commanded the man, ‘you may eat freely of every tree in the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall die. (Genesis 2:16)

The result of that apparent minor transgression? Well, God said to them:

I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers, he will strike your head and you will strike his heel. To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing, in pain shall you bring forth children yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.

And to the man he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and you have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you ‘you shall not eat of it’ cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground for out of it you were taken, you are dust and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3: 15-19)

The immediate result of that sin was broken relationships, a broken relationship between God and Adam and a broken relationship between Adam and Eve. And broken relationships mean loneliness and strife.

So … what was God’s solution to that distance that we put between Him and us through our sin? How did He address that?

Well, it’s simple really. It was a complete no brainer for Him. All He had to do was to follow the longing of His heart and we know what that is because He tells us what it is over and over again in the Old Testament. Let’s have a look at just one example, Leviticus 26: 11-13, God said:

I will place my dwelling in your midst and I shall not abhor you and I will walk among you and I will be your God and you shall be my people. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be slaves no more, I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you to walk upright.

The longing of God’s heart is to be close to His people. He’s our Father, He loves us, of course, that’s the longing of His heart. And yet, through the whole of the Old Testament we see how God’s people struggle to honour Him. In fact, the name Israel literally means ‘to struggle with God’.

They failed, all the time, over and over again. And over and over again, He forgave them. It was this constant merry-go-round and it wasn’t working so here was His plan, a plan that, as I said yesterday, wasn’t some fall back, it was always His Plan A. Are you ready for it? Here God’s plan, John chapter 1:10-14. Speaking about Jesus, it says:

He was in the world and the world came into being through him yet the world didn’t know him. He came to what was his own and his own people didn’t accept him but to all who received him, who believed in his name he gave them power to become children of God who were born not out of blood or out of the will of the flesh or of the will of a man but of God and the word became flesh and lived amongst us and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and of truth. (John 1:10-14)

The plan was for God to take a giant step towards us even though we’d drifted so far away from Him that we really didn’t know Him anymore. This God who had an intimate personal relationship back then in the beginning with Adam and Eve, the Word (that’s Jesus), the Word became flesh and lived amongst us. That’s what we celebrate at Christmas

But can I give you the literal meaning of that verse because when you have that, it makes a lot more sense. It literally says that Jesus became flesh and tabernacled amongst us, set up His home amongst us, it’s the language of the Exodus where God’s presence travelled on the forty-year journey through the wilderness with His people in that tent, in that tabernacle.

Jesus coming to this planet is Jesus stepping out and coming close to you to travel on your journey with you on your exodus. That’s what makes this Christmas thing so amazing – to set you free, to make sure that you are never alone. Not through the problems of this life, not through the fractured relationships and the enmity that exists in this world through our sin, not through that time where we come to the end of this life and not for the rest of eternity.

Christmas is Jesus coming close, Christmas is God following the desire of His heart to be close to you and me by sending His Son to be on our journey with us.

Are you getting this? Is this touching your heart as I tell you this age-old story with a new twist? That new twist is that Jesus came for you. Jesus came to be on your journey. Jesus came to bring you comfort to bind up your broken heart, to bring release from captivity of your sin, to be on this journey every step of the way. And what a terrible price He paid for that so that we could see His glory and know Him and experience a one on one intimacy with Him.

Now let me bring you back to your death-bed … what if, instead of being terribly alone on your deathbed you experience the very presence of Jesus right there with you on your journey with His love and His forgiveness and His grace and His peace and His mercy? What if instead of being terribly alone, you come to know as each second ticks by on that clock, you are drawing closer and closer to that time that you will see that Jesus face to face?

I don’t care what bad things have happened to you in your life. I don’t care how lost and alone you may feel. It doesn’t matter because Jesus is in this place with you and He will never leave you and never forsake you because on that starry starry night in Bethlehem, He came for you.

He came to say, “I love you”, He came to suffer and die for you. He came to rise again and give you a completely new life with your slate wiped clean. He came to set you free. He came to bring you peace. He came to be with you for every minute of every day for the rest of eternity.

That’s Christmas. That’s what God was doing by sending us His Son. That’s what we’re celebrating or at least, what we’re pretending to celebrate over this coming week.

Do you get it? Jesus came for you and if you have nothing else to celebrate this Christmas then celebrate that. It’s all you need to make your Christmas the best one ever.

And remember, I’m praying for you that this message, this incredibly Good News of Jesus, will light up your heart with a joy unspeakable.

A QUIET REFLECTION

I just want to pick up on something really insightful my pastor said last Sunday, about being with someone who is dying. He made the point that one of the most powerful things that we can do is simply to touch that person. Whether it’s holding their hand, or giving them a hug.

I remember when my dad was in intensive care just before he died, that’s exactly what the nurse told me to do. Why? Because that sort of intimacy brings a powerful comfort and reassurance to the person who is dying.

You know yourself, just knowing that someone is here, standing with you, caring for you when you’re going through a difficult time, is in and of itself truly powerful. It may not make the problem go away, but it brings a comfort that nothing else can bring.

And in many respects, that is what the physical Presence of Jesus, which began on this earth on that first Christmas, is all about. Of course, you and I can’t touch Him physically right now, but one of His great promises, just before He ascended into heaven was that He would pour out His Holy Spirit on every man, woman and child who believes in Him.

I just want you to quietly reflect on that powerful, powerful truth. Because according to Jesus, that’s even better than having Him around physically. Speaking about His departure and the Holy Spirit, He said this: John 16:7:

Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

The Holy Spirit, better than Jesus, according to Jesus. More intimate than Jesus, because when the Holy Spirit fills us, He never leaves us. He is always there to empower, to comfort, to guide and to give us wisdom and power.

With Jesus, if the disciples were in another place, then He wasn’t there physically with them. But with the Holy Spirit there is no place that you or I can go to flee from His Presence. As the Psalmist writes:

Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the darkness isn’t dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139:7-12)

What we tend to do is we chop God’s great story up into little bits. We separate the birth of Jesus from His death, from His resurrection, from His pouring out of the Holy Spirit, from the powerful things that were ushered in through the early church.

But you can’t do that. All of those things happened because Jesus stepped out of the Spiritual dimension into the physical dimension, onto this planet to be close to us.

That closeness, that intimacy, is like touching a dying person. You and I, until Jesus touches our lives, we are dying people. And then, He brings new life. And then He fills us with His Holy Spirit and then, you and I are never, ever, ever alone again for the rest of eternity.

That’s what Jesus’ coming has given you. That’s why Christmas is such an amazing time to remember this radical plan of God’s to show us His love by being close to us, by touching us, even though we were dying in our sin until He came.

My prayer for you … is that as you drink in this wondrous message of Christmas. As you reflect on it in your heart, the Holy Spirit will do an amazing work of joy in you, to cause your spirit to soar into heavenly places – and receive this amazing Christmas present that we call Jesus.

Have you ever wondered what it would have been like, to have been there on that very first Christmas, when Jesus was born into this world? In one sense, it would have been very ordinary. A little village, Bethlehem. People all over the place. Business as usual. But in another sense … it would have been totally, mind-blowingly, gobsmackingly amazing!

SILENT NIGHT

There’s a bunch of guys in the Bible who I envy. Now I know what you’re thinking, the tenth Commandment:

You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife or male or female slave or ox or donkey or anything else that belongs to your neighbour. (Exodus 20:17)

Yeah, we’re not supposed to envy or covet anything because it leads to some really bad behaviour. I get that. But hear me out.

If there was anyone I could have been with in the Bible, it would have to be those shepherds who were out there watching their flocks by night. We don’t quite know what night it was. But you have to gather by what the angel said to them that Jesus had already been born so I prefer to think of it as Christmas night. Only to them, sitting there in the field watching their sheep, it wasn’t Christmas night at all. It was just another night at the office doing what shepherds did. It was a mundane part of their lives. They may have been enjoying the evening. They may not have been enjoying the evening. It doesn’t matter. They were doing what shepherds did out there on the side of a hill somewhere just outside Bethlehem.

The sun had gone down like it goes down every night. And tomorrow morning the sun was going to come up again, like it did every morning and nothing much changed in between. Maybe the moon was out, maybe not. And in the absence of the bright light and the pollution you and I have to put up with these days, the Milky Way was spread across the firmament in all its glory and all was well with the world.

That’s the picture, that’s what was going on. But on that particular night God had a plan to break into this world in the most amazing and spectacular way.

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night and then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid for see I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people. To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord.’

‘This will be a sign for you, you will find a child wrapped in bands of clothing and lying in a manger’. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favours.’

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let’s go down to Bethlehem and see this thing that’s taken place which the Lord has made known to us’. So they went with haste and they found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in a manger.

When they saw this they made known what had been told to them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them but Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all that they’d heard and seen as it had been told to them. (Luke 2: 8-20)

I often wonder how I would have reacted had I been with those guys on that starry starry night. I wonder how I would react if that happened to me tonight at home or on the way back from work or whatever mundane thing I happened to be doing tonight. Because for me, the idea of a cosmic light show and angels filling the sky and all that jazz, well for me, it’s pretty easy to believe because it happened at a nice safe distance of two thousand or so years ago. Because you and I have watched the kids Christmas pantomimes so many times and sung the Christmas carols so many times, it’s become part of our psyche that this thing with the shepherds actually happened. We accept it pretty much without thinking.

But bring it back to reality and how would we cope if it happened to us here and now or if we’d been back there with the shepherds’ back then sitting in that field on that night. I think I would be petrified like they were to start with. It would be so unexpected, so out of this world, so impossible and yet there they were and it was happening to them and God broke into their world in this startling ‘in your face’ kind of way.

You know something? I believe that that’s what God wants to do today in your world and mine. I believe God wants to shake us out of our comfortable little Christmas ritual, our “business as usual” approach to Christmas and get right in our faces and say, “Don’t you realise what this Christmas thing is all about? Today, I’m bringing you good news for unto you a Saviour has been born for you”. And the reaction He’s looking for out of you and me is the reaction that the shepherds had.

Because when the angels had left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one another, “Well, what are we going to do? Why don’t we go down to Bethlehem and see what has taken place that which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste, they didn’t dawdle; they went with haste. They found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told to them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.

God wants us to come to Jesus for ourselves – to worship Jesus for ourselves, to tell the world what we’ve seen. Imagine His frustration, His great frustration when He sees people, like you and me, just going through the motions at Christmas time. Imagine how that makes Him feel when on that first Christmas, He gave to you and He gave to me the single most precious gift that has ever been given in all of human history.

So how about it? Will you grab onto this Christmas present with both hands? Will you come to Jesus and worship Him? Will you rejoice at what you’ve seen? Will you tell people what you’ve seen? Will you let Christmas impact your heart in the most miraculous way? Well, will you or are you just going to do the same old Christmas ritual this year like you’ve done for the past umpteen years?

Because here’s the thing, one day Jesus is coming back. One day, Jesus will return to this earth and when that happens it will make the cosmic light show that the shepherds experienced look like a little sideshow, I’m telling you. When Jesus ascended back into heaven this is what happened:

So when they’d come together they asked him, ‘Lord is this the time when you’ll restore the Kingdom of Israel?’ And he replied, ‘It’s not for you to know the times or the periods that the Father has set by his own authority but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and then you’ll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria and even to the ends of the earth’.

When he had said that as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up towards the heaven suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards the heaven? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come again in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. (Acts 1: 6-11)

See, that’s going to happen one day, just as unexpectedly as the angels appeared before those shepherds, just as unexpectedly as Jesus slipped into the world the first time. One day this Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead. One day He will break back into our physical world just as unexpectedly as He did back then. Only this time there will be no mistaking Him, this time He will come just as He left, in amazing glory to gather His own unto Himself.

So as yet another Christmas slips by, I’m going to ask you this … are you ready? Because one day Jesus is coming ready or not. And with all my heart, I want to wish you and those whom you love the most radically wonderful Christmas you have ever had.

IT’S ONLY JUST BEGUN

Today, as they say, is the beginning of the rest of your life. It’s a funny time this time of year just after Christmas and just before we step into the hurly burly of a new year. It’s a time of rest and reflection for most of us. For some, it’s a time of regret. For others, it’s a time of celebration. For some, it’s a time of anticipation over what next year will bring. And yet for others, it’s a time of fear and worry.

At this time of year, we’ve all experienced those different emotions at different times so let’s spend a few minutes looking back on the year that’s just been. And perhaps a few minutes looking forward at what might be in the coming year.

Christmas is such an incredibly special time because it marks a new birth, bringing a new life into this world is singularly the most special and privileged thing we can ever do. Any parent will tell you that, particularly the mother’s in our midst, it’s just so special. And it’s that new birth that I want to revisit with you today because Christmas is a time to remember that in Christ you and I have a new birth, a rebirth if you will.

And there are a few people today I know that need to experience that rebirth for themselves because you’re wallowing in the regrets of the past. In the regrets perhaps of things that could have been but weren’t, in the regrets of the things that shouldn’t have been but were.

But in Christ, something special happens. It’s a new birth and for many, even for those who heard Jesus talk about it, it wasn’t an easy thing to get a handle on.

See there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said, ‘Rabbi we know that you’re a teacher who’s come from God for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God’. And Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly I tell you that no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again.

Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can you be born after growing old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’ And Jesus answered, ‘Truly, I tell you no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born both of water and of spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, what is born of the spirit is spirit.’

‘Do not be astonished that I say, ‘You must be born from above’, the wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it but you don’t know where it comes from or where it’s going. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit’. (John 3: 1-8)

See, that new birth is about a new start in life. You’ve heard the term being born again Christian. Some people roll their eyes when they say it. They use it as a form of derision but Jesus means it for real. Jesus means it as a new start, as a complete rebirth, a fresh start, the slate wiped clean through faith in Him.

Every now and then when I’ve had a really long day, I’m one of these crazy early starters, so in the late afternoon I might have a short nap and a shower to freshen up. And I come out of the bedroom into the living room and I say to my wife, “Ah, I feel like a new man.”

In a sense that’s what Jesus is talking about because our faith in Him doesn’t just bring forgiveness, it brings that ‘new man’ feeling as He wipes away all our sins and all the regrets and all the consequences of the past. See, new birth equals new start equals new life. When you’re born again, the old life doesn’t matter anymore, it’s completely meaningless because your slate has been wiped clean.

The Apostle Paul put it this way, he said:

If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away. See, everything has become as new. (2 Corinthian 5:17)

So right at this special time of the year, I believe that God wants to give you a new start by reminding you that if you’ve accepted Jesus as your Saviour and your Lord, then you are a new creation, completely new. And the result of that, is that everything old is gone. It’s completely wiped away which makes it completely irrelevant to you today and to all your tomorrow’s.

The powerfully operative word in this little verse is the short word ‘see‘. Let’s listen to it again, 2 Corinthians 5:17.

If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away. See, everything has become new.

God is imploring you to look at your life through His eyes. SEE! See that the effect of the new birth that you have in Jesus Christ means that EVERYTHING has become new. The past is gone, forgiven and done and dusted.

Now, you can look forward to the New Year ahead in a completely new way, completely uninhibited and unconstrained by the failures and the hurts and the losses and the regrets that you have over your past. Completely unaffected by your low self-esteem, completely unaffected by nasty hurtful things that people have said to you and done to you because by the miraculous power of your complete rebirth in Christ through the Holy Spirit – you are a completely new creation. And as a result of that, everything in your life, everything in your world has become new. SEE!

Nicodemus found that hard to believe and hard to understand. You and I can find that hard to believe and hard to understand. But your God wants you to live your life as though the slate of your past has been wiped clean. Because you know something? If you believe in Jesus, it has and what lies ahead of you is a completely new life full of exciting God-type possibilities and amazing things that God wants to do to bless you. And to let His blessing flow out through you into this parched land of people who are in desperate need of a Saviour.

To Israel, His chosen people, at the end of seventy years in captivity as slaves in Babylon, He said this:

‘For surely I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. When you search for me you’ll find me. If you seek me with all your heart I’ll let you find me’ says the Lord, ‘And I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I’ve driven you’, says the Lord, ‘And I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. (Jeremiah 29: 11-14)

Do you see? Are you looking? Are you hearing? Do you perceive what God is saying to you through His Word today?

God has great plans for you and those plans are about your future. And He has made all provision for you through Jesus, to wipe your slate clean and to restore you and to bless you. And all He needs now is just one thing … He needs for you to take His Word into your heart, to believe it, to act on it as though it’s true. Because you know something? It really is.

And if you choose to step out into your future, a future that maybe would have been otherwise constrained by regrets and hurts from the past. But if you choose now to step out into your future knowing that the regrets of the past are completely wiped away – completely gone, completely irrelevant – if you choose to believe God and take Him at His Word and believe that you can live your life from this day forward on the basis of what God is saying about you is true, then what you’re in fact doing is stepping out into your own rebirth.

Christmas is a time of celebration of new life – the life of Jesus who slipped into this world to set captives free, to bind up the broken-hearted, to bring Good News to the poor. This Jesus, He came for you, He came to set you free, He came to bind up your broken heart, He came to bring you Good News and this is the Good News that I bring to you today.

Today is the beginning of a new life – a life of freedom and a life of joy and a life of power and yes a life of sacrifice. A life that is so much more than any of us could have ever dreamed.

This past year is done and dusted and in Christ you can leave behind. This New Year is full of possibilities, full of potential and in Christ, you can step out into it with the confidence of knowing that you’ll be playing your small part in Gods mighty plan.

Hey, if that’s not Good News, tell me what is. 

YES IT’S FOR YOU

As you look forward to the rest of your life, I know that some of what we’ve spoken about today isn’t easy to swallow. Especially if you’re in the middle of a rough trot. But remember, Mary and Joseph didn’t have the big picture of what God was up to back then. They were immersed in trial after trial.

But the beauty of it is that you and I do have Matthew, Mark, Luke and John’s accounts of what they went through. We know the big picture, we can stand back and see what God was up to in a way that the players back then simply couldn’t. To them, it felt like they were being swept along by events completely out of their control.

On top of everything, of course, Caesar had declared that a census was to be taken, which in the absence of today’s modern technology, meant that Mary and Joseph, like all the other people, had to travel back to their ancestral homes and that was a long slog.

But from God’s vantage point, these weren’t unconnected, random events. These were all part of His plan to usher a Saviour into this world. A Messiah that nobody expected. See, God is the God of the unexpected. There are no events or circumstances that are beyond Him. There are no events or circumstances in your life that escape Him or pass Him by.

He’s across everything, in absolute detail, in the minutest detail, everything that’s going on in your life. And I’m here to tell you that if your Christmas wasn’t quite what you wanted it to be, wasn’t quite what the advertisers said it should be, if you didn’t quite get the standard issue Ho, Ho, Ho kind of Christmas this year, then your God is still with you today.

Your God just showed up through His Word. Your God is with you in that place you’re in right now. And nothing, not death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate you from the love of your God in Jesus Christ.

And that my friend, is worth celebrating not just at Christmas time, but for every day for the rest of your life.

And just as He was with Mary and Joseph, even though they didn’t have the full picture, even though it was uncomfortable, so He is and forever will be, with you.

I’ve called this series of messages “Old Story, New Twist”. I did that for a reason. Because I know that this Christmas story, far from being some distant, archaic tale of which pantomimes are born, is a gritty, real story of the journey of the Creator of the Universe into the lives of men and women, into the lives of you and me.

And when we look at that old, old story from His perspective (from the vantage point of heaven’s balcony if you will), when we allow God by His Spirit and through His Word to guide us on that journey over the dusty trails that Mary and Joseph trod, we discover a God who is on that same dusty, difficult journey with you and me today.

Peter the Apostle in 1 Peter 5 and verse 7 said that we should:

Cast all our anxieties on God because he cares for us.

So whatever anxieties and discomforts and fears and disappointments you happen to be carrying on your rocky road from this moment forward, this God who is above all your circumstances, this God who is in all your circumstances, this God who sent His Son to lighten your load, wants to take your burdens from you.

So how about it? Is it time to hand all that stuff over to Him and to get on the journey and head towards the rest of your life with the joy and the anticipation and the excitement of a new life in Christ for you?

Because Jesus came for you. He came to set you free. He came to bring you forgiveness and a future and a certain hope and an eternity with Him. That’s what He ushered in, on that very first Christmas. And that, I reckon, is something worth celebrating at Christmas … and beyond.