CELEBRATE, DECORATE, SING THE CAROLS, WATCH THE MOVIES, PRAISE THE LORD, IT’S THE HAP-HAPPIEST SEASON OF ALL!
I can hear the blue-haired, stuck-in-the-mud, religious, legalist buzz killers right now. “WHAAAAATTTT, you can’t teach about Christmas!!!! It’s not Thanksgiving yet!! You can’t watch Christmas movies, sing carols, or decorate until Thanksgiving, and you must take down your decorations the day after Christmas, and certainly no later than New Year’s Day !!!!!!!!!!!” Avoid them like Covid.
Let’s tackle the Thanksgiving first thing. Thanksgiving Day is just that! It is a day that men have designated to give thanks, which should be done all day, every day. How great would it be if that is what people did on Thanksgiving day? It is not a prerequisite for starting your Christmas party!!!!!
CHRISTMAS IS NOT A DAY!! IT IS NOW!! FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN SAVED BY BELIEVING AND BELIEVING IN JESUS, CHRISTMAS IS EVERY DAY!!!
Come on, get with it! Start the party!! Light the lights aggravate your Debbie Downer, Party Pooper, Buzz Killer friends, relatives, and neighbors, and be Clark W. Grizmund! Make your home look like your joy exploded!
THE OBJECTORS
If you are a Seller, you deal with objections all the time.
My only objection is that I believe Christmas should be named Jesusmas or Yeshuamas. Christ is not Jesus’ title or His first or last name. The King of Kings is not the Christ. Christ is a poor Greek translation that means the “anointed.” Jesus was anointed for three years. Then He became the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!
BUT THERE ARE OTHERS
They are crazy, but they are out there.
There are debates about when Jesus was born. Some claim that it was in the fall. Some argue that it was in the spring. Some argue whether Jesus was born in the back of a house or in a literal stable. The legalists claim that December twenty-fifth is a pagan holiday, and some say decorating trees is a pagan tradition. Hysterical. Some stiff-necked biblical scholars argue that no place in the Bible says that we are to celebrate the birth or death of Jesus. All miss the point!
Do you know anyone who decorates Christmas trees or celebrates December twenty-fifth who worships pagan Gods or the evil one? Have you ever seen anyone bowing before their Christmas tree and praising Baal?
The King of Kings has no objections to our rejoicing over His gift, no matter when, where, or how we do. I love Christmas. I am a certified Christmas nut. I love the decorations, the lights, the singing, the feasts, the love, and the joy that comes with it. I am a cheerful giver and I love the giving which is what God did. I love the people acknowledging my King and praising Him. I love the focus on God and goodness, love, and charity and joyful expectation. I love all of it. Christmas is a year-round event for me; the celebration begins now.
HERE IS WHY WE REJOICE AND CELEBRATE THE GREATEST ACT OF LOVE EVER!
Jesus explained Himself and Why He came to earth to the flesh-bound Spirit void High Priest Nicodemus, who could not understand what Jesus said to him because of his lack of Spiritual Acuity.
“If I have told you of things that happen right here on the earth, and yet none of you believes Me, how can you believe Me if I tell you of heavenly things?
“And yet no one has ever gone to heaven, but there is One Who has come down from heaven–The Son Of Man, (Jesus) Whose home is in heaven.”
“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert on a pole, so must The Son Of Man be lifted up on the cross. So that EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM May not die but have eternal life and live forever!”
“FOR GOD SO LOVED, The World (You personally just the way you are sins, warts and all.) THAT HE GAVE (Remember this equation. God’s Love produced His Gift)
HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON (Himself in an earth suit) SO THAT (There was a purpose for His act of infinite mercy, compassion, forgiveness, grace, and love.) WHOEVER (meaning precisely that, whoever: not those who are good, not those who repent, not those who confess, not those who are baptized. WHOEVER!) BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NEVER DIE BUT WILL LIVE FOREVER.
God did not send His Son into the earth to judge, reject, condemn, and pass judgment on the world (you personally fill in your name) but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.
HE (anyone) WHO BELIEVES IN HIM IS NOT JUDGED, OR CONDEMNED, BUT HE WHO DOES NOT BELIEVE IN HIM IS JUDGED AND CONDEMNED ALREADY because he has not believed in and trusted in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
(John 3:12-18)
That is the whole program. Believe in Jesus and live with Him in heaven forever, or reject Him and condemn yourself. God does not condemn his children; they do by rejecting the only possible method of salvation.
(John 14:6)
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!! THAT IS WHAT WE CELEBRATE!
We celebrate and praise God for teaching us what love is! We celebrate His undying, eternal, unconditional, incomprehensible love for each of us. We celebrate our love for Jesus and, in turn, for each other. It’s all about Love.
WHEN CHRISTMAS BEGAN
Christmas did not begin when God put on an earth suit. It actually started when God rolled the dice. God took the risk of choosing to give man free will. He knew there was at least a fifty-fifty chance that His creation would use it for evil, but He did not want a planet of automatons, so He took the chance.
(Deuteronomy 30:19, John 3:18)
Sure enough, Adam and Eve listened to the serpent of old, the stench in God’s nostrils, old scratch, the evil one, who employed his favorite weapon, which he still uses today. He called the Word of God into question. He used these words: “Surely He did not say.” So they brought sin into the world by rejecting the Word of God, and they ingested the “fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”
They sinned and infected humanity with the knowledge of good and evil. They instantly died a Spiritual death. They rejected Holy Spirit along with God. That is why we must be born again of the water (the natural birth process) and of the Spirit. When we believe and believe in Jesus, Holy Spirit once again indwells us as He had Adam and Eve. That is the meaning of being born again, (Genesis 2:17, John 3:3, John 3:5) )
God knew instantly that He had to make a way for Holy Spirit to indwell humanity and eliminate sin from the world and all people. He planned to become a sinless human whose sacrifice paid the price for the sins of the world (each of us individually). God knew that no human could behave their way into eternal life with Him or earn His blessings. So, He determined to pay the price, once and for all, for all of our sins: past, present, and future. He paid the ransom necessary to buy us by suffering the worst, most painful death any human ever has or ever will.
(Isaiah 53:4-5, Psalm 103:1-3, John 1:29, 1 Peter2:29, Hebrews 8:12, Hebrews 10:10-18, Revelations 1:5)
The only requirement for us to accept the greatest gift of all time is to believe and believe in Him. Period!
(John 6:28-29)
WHAT ARE THE ODDS?
There were more than four hundred prophecies about the coming of the Lord. Forty-four were specific to Jesus. All were fulfilled in Him.
An astronomy professor at Westmont College named Peter Stoner calculated the probability of one man fulfilling the major prophecies concerning the Messiah.
After examining only eight different prophecies, he conservatively estimated that the chance of one man fulfilling all eight prophecies in his lifetime was one in 10^17.
“Suppose we lay 10^17 in silver dollars on the face of Texas. They’ll cover all of the state, two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly all over the state.
Blindfold a man and tell him he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up the one silver dollar with the particular mark. What chance would he have of getting the right one?”
Just the same chance the prophets would’ve had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any man, from their day to the present.
In every chapter of the Old Testament, there are prophecies about Jesus. Here is one of my favorites:
“Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Listen carefully, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will call his name Immanuel God with us.”
(Isaiah 7:14)
Immanuel God with us. When Jesus came to us, He was God in the flesh. When He returned to His throne, He moved into the hearts of all who believe and believe in Him. Jesus is God with us. He will never leave or forsake us, and He lives in us forever, and of His reign, there shall be no end.
You are spiritually dead if that does not make you want to dance, sing, and light the lights.
Mary Christmas!
END OF TEACHING
