"I have told you this, so that you might have peace in your hearts because of me. While you are in the world you will have to suffer. But CHEER UP! I have defeated the world! Jesus - John 16:33 (CEV)
The topic today is “How to Cheer Up,” so I thought I would begin by reading some excerpts from some of the “Dear Jesus” letters written by the kids who were here on Wednesday night.
Instead of a “Dear Santa” letter I asked them to write a “Dear Jesus” letter. We talked about the Christmas story and then I asked them to tell Jesus what they wanted for Christmas in a letter.
Kent Richardson, age 11: “Dear Jesus, I would like for the homeless to have clothes and food. I would like to have the game, ’Guitar Hero.’ I would like to get some clothes and for people to stop being selfish. I would like for everyone to have a great Christmas.”
Calvin Bush, age 10: “Dear Jesus, Please help the homeless to have shelter. I would like more arrows for my bow and for everyone to have money.”
Preston Taylor, age 5: (I had to write Taylor’s answers down for him but here are few of the things he asked for) “Dear Jesus, I wish you a Merry Christmas! (That’s priceless!) Here’s what I want for Christmas: a motorcycle, a big toy truck, a stuffed animal, a toy fire truck, and a toy train.”
Brandy Lusk, age 12: “Dear Jesus, Please help my pet bird’s wing to heal. I would like some drums for Christmas, a Game Boy, my mom needs new glasses, ‘to-go’ food, a wiener dog, and for Pastor Brian to have a white Christmas.”
Brittney Lusk, age 12: “Dear Jesus, I wish for Christmas a Game Boy with games, to help the homeless and the needy with food and clothes, and for everyone to have a tree for Christmas.”
Chris Lusk, age 13: “Dear Jesus, I would like to have a Play Station 3, puppies, a snake, a million dollars, for people to stop showing violence in movies and stop taking drugs, for Pastor Brian to have a good Christmas, and for everybody to have a reindeer.
Presley Taylor, age 11: “Dear Jesus, I want everyone in the world to have a good Christmas. Give a miracle to the people who don’t have any money. Help me to become a black belt in karate and become first place in a karate tournament. Last time I got fourth place in the tournament and only got to fight boys.”
I hope those cheer you up. They certainly cheer me up.
We’re also going to look at something in the Word of God today that will cheer you up!
We’re beginning this year’s Christmas series today but we’re not going to be reading the traditional Christmas story. Instead we’re going to be looking at a letter written to Jews who started following Christ in the First Century. It’s called the Book of Hebrews.
The recipients of this letter were living in the midst of chaos. Specifically, their lives were being shaken by persecution and all the heartache and headaches associated with it. They were discouraged and disillusioned. In fact, they had been thinking about turning back, turning back to their old way of living, turning back to their former religious practices.
All of us have entertained ideas of turning back. We’ve all faced the temptation to be dejected, depressed, pessimistic and hopeless. That’s because we all face chaos in our lives. Sometimes life is confusing. Sometimes life seems disorganized. Not always, but sometimes. So our theme verse this month is going to be Hebrews 12:2 (NLT): “Keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish.”
We’re going to keep our eyes on Jesus all this month of December because that’s the key to finding calm in the chaos. We’re going to lift Jesus up! We’re going to look at how wonderful He is and we’re going to look at all the wonderful things He has done and is doing and is going to do!
If I want to find calm in my chaos I’ve got to consistently focus my faith on Christ. That’s a great theme for the Christmas season and one of the reasons its such a great time of year. One of the reasons the season is so joyous is because it’s all about Jesus and how God became man. When I give more attention to Jesus and concentrate less on the chaos in my life – I have more joy.
The original readers of the Hebrew letter weren’t joyful. They were being persecuted for following Christ. Their old Jewish friends and family didn’t like it because they left their old religion. And the Romans didn’t like Christians because they worshipped only one God. The Romans worshipped scores of gods. So the Jewish Christians were criticized, ostracized, and terrorized by Jews and Gentiles alike. They lived a hard life so they were tempted to turn back. They had been entertaining thoughts of giving up on their Christian faith.
The letter of Hebrews was written to encourage us to keep on following Christ, to find calm in our chaos. How? How can I find calm in my chaos? That’s what we’re going to discover in this series.
I have stress at work, relationship troubles, money woes, physical ailments, grief, loss, hurt, pain, sorrow, etc. Sometimes I don’t fully understand my problems and the problems around me, so I want to give up trying. Sometimes life is so chaotic I want to run and hide. I want to retreat from the battle. Which is what a lot of people have done.
Or I may want to build walls to protect myself. Chaos can make me so disillusioned that I become angry or fearful or judgmental or irritable. Sometimes I say and do stupid, self-destructive things when the chaos of life overwhelms me. Chaos explains a lot of bad behavior. I’m not saying it excuses our bad behavior but it does partially explain it. People don’t know the right thing to do or they are afraid that doing the right thing isn’t worth it so they do the wrong things. They turn back.
And perhaps the greatest enticement to turning back is the fact that we sometimes feel alienated from God. “God, why are you letting me face these disappointments in my life? Don’t you care about me?” Of course God cares.
Which is one of the reasons we can’t always trust our emotions. But even though we don’t always trust them we have to admit that we’re human and sometimes we feel this way. We know the Bible teaches that if we trust in God He’s near us even when we don’t feel like He’s there. But the persecution, the trouble, the pain, is staring us right in the face.
How can I cheer up? How do I find the grace and the understanding and the courage to go forward even when I feel like turning back?
That’s what the letter to the Hebrews is all about. So today we’re going to begin in the first chapter of this book. And we’re going to see how the chapters of this great letter progressively tell how to find calm in our chaos. I hope you come back each Sunday for the entire series this month.
Here’s how the letter to the Hebrew Christians begins.
1 Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. 2 And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. (Circle that phrase, “he has spoken to us through his Son.” That’s the essence of Christmas. Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and miraculously born to a virgin named Mary because God wanted to speak to us IN PERSON! Have you ever had a message so vitally important that you had to deliver it in person? That’s what God did by sending Jesus!) God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe. 3 The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven. 4 This shows that the Son is far greater than the angels, just as the name God gave him is greater than their names. Hebrews 1:1-4 (NLT)
God speaking to us through His Son is what Christmas is all about! But what has that got to do with finding calm in my chaos?
Because of the Son coming into the world as a baby born in a stable, and using an animal feeding trough for His cradle - because the wealth of heaven was lavished on us poor sinners - because God became man through the miracle of the virgin birth - because Jesus allowed Himself to take on flesh and bones and have blood vessels and lungs and ears and hair follicles – IT IS NOW POSSIBLE FOR GOD TO SPEAK TO YOU AND ME IN PERSON!
I want you to see THREE THINGS ABOUT CHRISTMAS THAT WILL CHEER YOU UP!
1. CHRIST’S BIRTH MEANS THAT GOD WANTS TO SPEAK TO ME IN PERSON!
You may know some people who won’t speak to you or some people that you’d like to speak to but you’ll never get the chance – but God isn’t one of them. Jesus became human so that God could speak to other human beings in person. You may object, “But Jesus isn’t still here on earth in person.” Yes He is! He is here in the Person of the Holy Spirit! When He went back to heaven He sent His Holy Spirit who is still speaking to people today!
God is a speaking God. He’s a communicative God. He’s not quiet or silent or still. He isn’t reserved, aloof, distant, cold, secretive, impersonal, undemonstrative and standoffish. If that’s the picture you’ve had of God then you’ve misunderstood Him!
Man’s problem is not that God isn’t speaking. Our problem is that we haven’t been listening!
The writer of Hebrews reminds his readers that God spoke through the ministry of the prophets and He spoke through the ministry of angels. These messages from God have been codified in the Bible.
These Jewish converts to Christianity who were the initial recipients of this great letter to the Hebrews were very familiar with the ministry of prophets and angels. The history of the Jews is a miraculous history of a God speaking to His people. God didn’t create the world and then spin it like a top and let it go. He stayed involved. He spoke. He’s a speaking God.
Chapter one of Hebrews talks about how God spoke and the world was created. In Genesis chapter one the Bible says, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. (Genesis 1:3) “God said, ‘Let there be a space between the waters, to separate the waters of heaven and the waters of earth…” (Gen. 1:6) “God said, ‘Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.” (Gen. 1:9) Eight times in Genesis one the Bible says “God said,” and then something was created.
And here in Hebrews chapter one the Bible says that Jesus was the Creator along with the Father! Look again at the last part of verse 2 – “through the Son he created the universe.” John expanded on this thought in his Good News account when he said this about Jesus.
“All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him was not even one thing made that has come into being.” John 1:3 (Amp)
The Jews knew this. They knew that God had spoken in creation and that He had spoken throughout their history. But the thing they had forgotten - the thing you and I sometimes forget when our lives get chaotic - is that God is not just a God who communicates through His messengers like the prophets and the angels. He is a God who came Himself – IN PERSON - to talk to us!
Why would the Jewish Christians want to turn back to a religion that was disseminated by prophets and angels, by intermediaries, when God was now communicating with them directly in Jesus who is God Himself!? That we be like going back to riding a tricycle after I got my driver’s license.
The writer of the Hebrew letter was trying to get them to see the utter foolishness of their desire to turn back. It’s always ridiculous to turn back once you know Jesus! Always!
Like Simon Peter said, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life.” John 6:68 (NLT)
It ought to cheer every one of us up to know that God wants to speak to us personally!
He wants to speak to us personally even in our chaos, even in the midst of our messed up lives. So He sent His Son Jesus, and as I said earlier, when Jesus finished His work here on earth, He sent His Holy Spirit to speak to each one of us.
It’s marvelous how God can speak to our hearts. It may be through a sermon or a song, it may be through circumstances or through a family member or friend or co-worker, and of course He always speaks in His word, the Bible. God is speaking and if you will listen He wants to talk to you. Getting people to listen to God is one of the great themes of the letter to the Hebrews. When I don’t listen to God I make all sorts of wrong choices in my life.
One of the most remarkable stories of God speaking to someone I’ve read comes from a prayer letter from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
“There was a woman in an African nation who came to Christ and grew in her commitment and devotion to the Lord. As often happens, however, this alienated her from her unchurched husband, and over the years he grew to despise and hate her new devotion to Christ.
“His anger and bitterness reached their climax when he decided to kill his wife, their two children and himself, unable to live in such self-inflicted misery any longer. (Apparently God was speaking to him through his wife’s life but he didn’t want to listen so he wanted to silence God’s voice by committing murder/suicide.) But he needed a motive. He decided he would accuse her of stealing his precious keys. The keys were to the bank where he worked, the house, and the car. Early one afternoon he left his bank and headed for the tavern. His route took him across a footbridge that extended over the headwaters of the Nile River. He paused above the river and dropped the keys. Then he spent much of the afternoon drinking and carousing.
“Later that afternoon, his wife went to the fish market to buy the evening meal. She purchased a large Nile perch. As she was gutting the fish, to her astonishment, in it’s belly were her husband’s keys. How had they gotten there? What were the circumstances? She didn’t know; but she cleaned them up and hung them on the hook on which they belonged.
“Sufficiently drunk, the young banker came home that night and pounded open the front door shouting, “Woman, where are my keys?” Already in bed, she got up, picked them off the hook in the bedroom, and handed them to her husband. When he saw the keys, he later said, he became sober and made an instant faith commitment to Christ. He fell on his knees sobbing, asked for forgiveness, and confessed Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.” (Adapted from an online sermon, “Peter’s Progress,” by Steve Tregenza)
God is speaking! He’s speaking to each one of us. Not in an audible voice, but He has spoken to us in His Son and He’s speaking today by His Holy Spirit. Let that cheer you up!
God wants to talk to me! To me! If your favorite sports or entertainment celebrity wanted to talk to you – you’d think, “Wow! I must be really special!” You are! You’re so special that the most important person in the universe wants to talk to you! If you want calm in your chaos all you have to do is listen to Him!
Now let’s quickly read the rest of Hebrews chapter one and make two more points about cheering up.
5 For God never said to any angel what he said to Jesus: “You are my Son. Today I have become your Father.” God also said, “I will be his Father, and he will be my Son.” 6 And when he brought his firstborn Son into the world, God said, “Let all of God’s angels worship him.” 7 Regarding the angels, he says, “He sends his angels like the winds, his servants like flames of fire.” 8 But to the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. You rule with a scepter of justice. 9 You love justice and hate evil. Therefore, O God, your God has anointed you, pouring out the oil of joy on you more than on anyone else.” 10 He also says to the Son, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundation of the earth and made the heavens with your hands. 11 They will perish, but you remain forever. They will wear out like old clothing. 12 You will fold them up like a cloak and discard them like old clothing. But you are always the same; you will live forever.” 13 And God never said to any of the angels, “Sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies, making them a footstool under your feet.” 14 Therefore, angels are only servants—spirits sent to care for people who will inherit salvation.
Here are two more characteristics of Christ that ought to cheer you up. Not only is Jesus God, speaking to us personally, but also…
2. CHRIST’S BIRTH MEANS THAT GOD WILL BE SPEAKING TO ME FOREVER!
Reconsider verse 8: “But to the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever.
You can turn to, or turn back to, anything you want in this life to try and find calm in your chaos. You can turn to material things and get all the satisfaction they bring. But material things aren’t going to last forever.
With the value of the American dollar dropping like it has lately I was reminded of a cartoon that depicted two well-dressed businessmen having lunch in a posh restaurant. One of the men has a look of horror on his face as he says to the other, “I had the most terrifying dream last night. I dreamed that the value of the dollar had slipped so low that it was no longer worth worshipping.”
You can turn to a life of pleasure seeking and the various highs that are out there to be had. But highs don’t last. You can turn to various people. But people leave you through changes in life and through death. You can turn to a job. But manufacturing plants shut down and businesses close their doors.
Christ is king today and He’s going to be king forever! That’s security! Jobs aren’t always secure. Relationships sometimes crumble or someone we love dies. Money goes only so far and there’s always the chance of something unexpected occurring. But Jesus is always going to be King!
If you love Jesus and serve Jesus that ought to cheer you up! Focus on your eternal King and you will be cheered up!
Don’t look at all the angels that showed up that first Christmas. Christmas isn’t about the angels! It’s about the King! Angels are messengers. Preachers and prophets are messengers. JESUS IS THE MESSAGE!
If a courier knocks on your door and says, “I have an urgent message for you from the president, please sign here.” You’re not going to spend time chit chatting with the messenger. You’re going to rip that baby open and read the message! Jesus is God’s message to you and me that He loves us and longs for us to have a personal friendship with Him!
The recipients of the Hebrew letter were thinking about turning back to the messengers - the angels and the prophets - and the writer of the letter reminds them to focus on the message. Jesus is the message that will never become outdated!
And couple that thought with one more. Not only does Christmas mean God is speaking to me in person. Not only does it mean that He will speak to me forever.
3. CHRIST’S BIRTH MEANS GOD WILL BE SPEAKING TO ME FOREVER AND HIS MESSAGE WILL NEVER CHANGE!
Reconsider the last part of verse 12: “…you are always the same; you will live forever.”
Some people on this planet say one thing to you one day and a totally different thing to you the next. That can be very frustrating. That leads to a lot of chaos. But Jesus is always the same!
We live in a world full of uncertainties. If you concentrated solely on all of the things that are unstable in this world you wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. This world is chaotic.
Is there anything we can hold on to? Thank God there is! God never changes and His message to us will never change! He will never stop speaking to an individual that is willing to listen! That’s the only solid source of calm in the chaos for any of us!
Perhaps you want to hear God for yourself today. You want to experience Him speaking directly to you. You need the calm that only He can bring to your spirit, heart, and mind.
Maybe there’s some chaos in your life right now and you need to hear God speak to you in the worst way. Lately your life has felt disorganized and confusing. You’ve been uneasy and unsettled. The chaos has gotten to you. You’re sitting in this room this morning and you know deep down inside that you need to hear from God. God wants you to hear from Him. That’s why He sent Jesus that first Christmas.
I encourage you to open your mind and heart to hear what God has to say to you right now.
Some of us aren’t being particularly challenged by chaos in our lives at this moment. So what do we do with this message from the first chapter of Hebrews? I suggest three simple things.
The first is to remember what it feels like when your life has been chaotic. We so easily forget. We so quickly stop listening for God’s voice when our lives become calm. Think back to a time in your life when you were confused and fearful.
Second, think about other people that you know that need God’s calm this Christmas season. And third, make an agreement with God, a spiritual commitment, to pray for and encourage those people.
Let’s bow our heads together for prayer.
