Experiencing Christmas All Year Round Series

Christmas is in high gear at Cross Church and allow me to say to wish you a very merry Christmas! Thank you for joining me for a Christmas sermon series entitled, A Timeless Christmas.

Christmas is by far and away America’s most popular holiday. I bet it’s even your personal favorite holiday. Nine out of ten people celebrate Christmas in America so it’s a near-universally celebrated holiday. Get this: Christmas is so good that it EVEN unifies Republicans and Democrats as they celebrate it equally!1 While Christmas is wildly popular, more Americans celebrate a secular Christmas each year.

Here’s the troubling news: while nine out of ten people celebrate Christmas in America, one out of every third person celebrates Christmas with no spiritual meaning behind it.2 Imagine if the people you care about most didn’t know the significance of Christmas.

We all know it’s the most wonderful time of the year. But many of us just don’t know the “why” behind Christmas.

Christmas Confusion

When I think of confusion, I am reminded of the funny story of an elderly man who rear-ended a really expensive sports car. The driver is enraged, and he hops out and confronts the old man, “Look what you did to my car” he yells! “You’re going to give me $10,000 right now or I’m going to beat you to a pulp!” “Oh my,” says the old man, “I don't have that kind of money. Let me call my son, he trains dolphins and he will know what to do.” The old man pulled out his phone, dialed his son, and just as his son answered, the irate man snatched the phone away from the old man. “So, YOU’RE a dolphin trainer, huh? Well, your old man here just rear-ended my expensive and rare car and I need ten grand right now or I’m going to beat you AND your old man to a pulp.” “I’ll be there in 10 minutes,” the voice said calmly on the other end. Exactly ten minutes later a Jeep pulls up, and proceeds to pulverize the bully, leaving him in a heap on the side of the road. When he finished, he walked over to his father and said “For the last time dad, I train Seals, Navy Seals..... NOT dolphins!”3

Don’t be like our elderly friend. Don’t be confused about Christmas. I want each and every one of you to know the significance of Christmas. It really is quite amazing that all over the world, billions of people will stop everything they are doing to celebrate this Son of a carpenter, born in a “no nothing” town, to a teenage girl and a young man who wasn't even His biological father. When you pull back the curtain to Christmas, there’s a lot more than giving some gifts, and decorating a tree. Let me show the “why” of Christmas in John 1.

Today’s Scripture

“The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:9-13).

1. His Own Received Him Not

“He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:10-11).

Christmas is centered around Jesus Christ and His birth. But the most unusual thing happened. He was rejected by His own people. Now pause with me to really consider John’s statement. The Creator of the world is rejected by the very world He created.

1.1 Is This How I Am Treated?

When a son comes home from fighting a war, his mother wraps her arms around him, and cooks for him, while his dad beams with pride. When a political candidate is elected by their party, they walk out on a platform and are greeted by loud cheers. A Super Bowl-winning coach is hoisted up on the shoulders of their players as confetti falls from the ceiling. If your children come home from any distance this Christmas, you will smoke a brisket and have a time to rejoice with them. In every area of life, people receive their own. They love their own. And they celebrate their own. But not with Jesus.

The Bible says ironically, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:11). As hard as it is to believe, in spite of all the miracles Jesus did, all the wonderful things that Jesus taught, and the unbelievable way that Jesus lived, many people did not recognize Jesus. It’s puzzling, to say the least.