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Hope Found In Advent And The Coming King Series
Contributed by Dean Courtier on Dec 17, 2018 (message contributor)
Summary: The clue is in the name - Christmas is meant to be a celebration of the coming of Christ. Don’t let anything push Christ out of your Christmas! Celebrate Jesus, worship Him, make time for Him this Christmas.
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We continue in our series Hope found here, and this month our focus is on Advent and Hope in the Coming King.
I want to ask you a simple question this evening, but I need you to do something first, I want you create a quick list in your head of 3 things you think you need to do this Christmas. Maybe you can think of more than 3, but three is enough for the purpose of the question that is coming...
Ok, of the 3 things you are thinking of I want you to answer in your head with a simple yes or no if the following statement is on your list: Worship Jesus The Coming King.
I wonder if this was on your list? From some of your faces I get a sense that you know it should have been. The problem is the modern world conditions us to think much more about what we want to do at Christmas than what we are actually supposed to be doing.
So many are so busy with shopping they don’t even stop to consider the real meaning of what Christmas is actually for. There is the preparation, the decorating, the presents, the food, but somehow the world has chosen to forget what they are meant to really be celebrating.
The clue is in the name - Christmas is meant to be a celebration of the coming of Christ. Christmas, should be a celebration of the birth of Jesus. So many focus on the presents they will give and get and they ignore Jesus - the greatest gift of all.
We decorate our houses with trees and lights and tinsel, we buy gifts, we wrap presents, we write our cards, we eat more than our own body weight, and ignore the real reason for the season.
In all of the preparation and celebration we forget to make time to Worship Jesus, The Coming King,
the one who came to save us from our sin.
Christ is not meant to be forgotten at Christmas. Don’t let anything push Christ out of your Christmas! As Christians we are meant to celebrate the Coming of the King, we are meant to celebrate the Birth of Christ.
Don’t let anything push Christ out of your Christmas! Celebrate Jesus, worship Him, make time for Him this Christmas.
The world pushes Christ out of Christmas, but for us as followers of Jesus, Christ must be the central part of our Christmas celebrations.
Don’t let anything push Christ out of your Christmas! On Christmas Day, worship the one who paid the price for your Sin.
All of us love gifts, will you celebrate the birth of the one who came to give you the greatest gift you could ever receive? John 3:16-17, “This is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him.”
Christmas is about God’s plan to save us. Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, the arrival of the coming King, the incarnation of our Lord and Saviour. Our salvation is the reason for the season.
In Luke 1:31, the angel speaks to Mary and tells her “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.” Jesus means the ‘Lord saves’ or ‘the Salvation of the Lord’.
The truth is we could never save ourselves in our own efforts, in our own strength. Jesus was born to save us, Jesus was born to restore us to relationship with Father God, He came to rescue us, He came to save us from our sins.
In the birth of Jesus, God declares you and I are worth something significant to Him, Father God declares His love for us and His willingness to save us from our sin. God loves you and me so much that He was willing to be incarnated, to come to earth, so that He could save us from our sin, He came to rescue us, and when we place our trust in Jesus we are saved.
We have hope, a certain hope, Jesus is our Saviour. Matthew 1:23 says, “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’”
Immanuel, God with us that is the reason why we celebrate Christmas. God is not just looking after us, God doesn’t just care about us, God is with us. When we are in Christ, we are never alone, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords has come and He is with us. He has come to save you for His Glory, He has come to give the gift of salvation and eternal life to all who believe in Him. Jesus came to save us from hell, from the curse of the law, from sin, from the world, from our own selfish desires. At Christmas we remember, in His love, in His Grace, in His Mercy, our King has come to rescue us and we must worship and celebrate Him.