Im Dreaming Of A White Christmas Series

Series Introduction

What songs do you have stuck in your head this season? What Christmas songs do you find yourself humming each day? What is your favorite? Christmas seems to be a special time for music and song. In fact, for some people, the season doesn’t seem right until they hear those songs playing. Try to go shopping today without hearing Christmas songs being played over a store’s sound system. Retailers know that if they can get you and me in the Christmas spirit, we will probably spend more in the store. So they pipe in the music hoping to get our hearts tuned toward their version of Christmas. And if you are like me, you will be humming some of those familiar melodies months after Christmas is over.

We begin a new series of messages for the Christmas season. We are going to look at some favorite Christmas songs. I hope to use those songs to help us get in tune with Christmas. In fact, I hope that you and I leave with songs stuck in our heads. In them, I hope to rediscover a deeper meaning of Christmas.

Today, we start with a classic made famous by Bing Crosby.

PLAY I’M DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS.

Sermon Introduction

It happened the week before the Christmas pageant at church. A young girl was playing in her room while wearing her brand new, white Christmas dress. Not having a lot of money, Mom and Dad had scraped up enough to buy their daughter the dress. The dress had a special purpose. The little girl was supposed to sing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” as a solo as part of the upcoming Christmas program at church.

But the young girl was so proud of her brand new dress that Mom and Dad allowed her to wear that dress to sing in the school program that night. Now home, they gave clear instructions that she was to change into other clothes. But like most little girls, she could not bear the thought of removing that gorgeous dress immediately; at least not until she saw how the dress looked on her with her fingernails painted a nice bright, Christmas red.

If you know children and Murphy’s Law, you know what happened. The girl spilled some of that bright red nail polish on her brand new, white dress. And try as she might to clean it off, the stain only grew in shape and size. Each hidden session of cleaning attempts only made her guilt that much worse. There was not hiding her disobedience; there was no removing the stain. Her heart was broken. How would she sing White Christmas with a bright read stain in her dress? Why hadn’t she listened to her parents?

As we look at our passage today, I want you to think about that brand new white dress. Life can be like that brand new white dress now stained. We didn’t mean it to happen, but it did. Think about this phrase. Fill in the blank in your own life.

I never expected to be ____________. How would you fill in the blank?

Divorced

An alcoholic or drug addict

Addicted to pornography

Angry all the time

Unloved by my children

Betraying someone with gossip

In prison

Unmarried and pregnant

It is amazing how quickly we can spill that red nail polish on the fabric of our own lives. what do we do about the stain? Is it possible to get rid of it? If so, how?

Text:

Isaiah 1:2-18

Context:

The book of Isaiah is one of the books known as the books of the Prophets. It is written to record the words that Isaiah shared with the nation of Israel. It was written during the reigns of Kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.Within the book of Isaiah, we can see that the people of Judah exhibited an outward form of godliness, but their hearts had become corrupted. So God warns them through Isaiah, to come clean and purify themselves, or they will be taken into captivity by a foreign power.

Isaiah 1:2-4

2 Listen, O heavens! Pay attention, earth! This is what the LORD says: “The children I raised and cared for have rebelled against me. 3 Even an ox knows its owner, and a donkey recognizes its master’s care—but Israel doesn’t know its master. My people don’t recognize my care for them.” 4 Oh, what a sinful nation they are—loaded down with a burden of guilt. They are evil people, corrupt children who have rejected the LORD. They have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him.

Stop here for a minute. Let’s make some observations. Did you hear in vs 2 that calls for the ears of both heaven and earth? As we read this I want you to picture God speaking as a judge. After He calls for the attention of Heaven and earth, He announces the disobedience of Judah. Why include heaven and earth in announcing his judgment? Here's what I think. I think he is speaking to heaven and earth in a peer sense. Heaven and earth is all of creation. And creation was cursed by mankind's disobedience. Creation knows the full weight of all of mankind's sin. So God calls in creation to bear witness. I think God is making a point before all creation that ...