An Adventure of a Lifetime –Unwrapping Christmas
Scripture: Matthew 2: 1-3 Date: 13 December 2009
Purpose: To invite the listener to take a spiritual journey which will change his/her life?
My brother’s 40th birthday was earlier this month. He received a present that he didn’t have to unwrap at all. His wife is took him on an adventure, she took him to see a show and they stayed at a fancy hotel in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is definitely an adventure, maybe not a good one but none the less, it is an Adventure.
The greatest adventure of my life was not a trip at all, but a truth I came to know. It was when I met Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. That is when the adventure of my lifetime began and it continues to this day.
Some people I know are world travelers. They have been to the beautiful capitals of Europe, sailed the high seas and vacationed on lush tropical islands, but for many of these, the excitement of their journeys appears to diminish with each trip. As the next trip needs to be bigger and better than the one they have just returned from.
But the adventure I began with Jesus years ago is a adventure that has never diminished – never lost its appeal.
It is a journey that moves me from one place of spiritual growth to another. I love a good adventure and Jesus is the adventure of a life time.
This month we are UNWRAPPING CHRISTMAS, digging into the truths of Christmas and today we unwrap it to see that Christmas is an Adventure of a Lifetime!
Faith, my friends is the Adventure of a life time and this morning if you have not started that adventure I would like to invite you to come join me. Or maybe you did start some time ago but something happened and you got hung up somewhere. Your faith stalled and you haven’t moved since. Christmas is upon us let us get refueled and pack our bags for an awesome never ending Adventure.
- Please stand with me this morning for the reading of God’s truth.
Matthew 2: 1-3 1After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi[a] from the east came to Jerusalem 2and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east[b] and have come to worship him."
3When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
I. Faith, first of all is a journey!
A. In verses 1 and 2 we read of the Wise men who arrived from the east following a bright star of all things!
1. Everybody follows something because there is within each one of us a need for a belief to follow. It’s a thing you’re born with and you couldn’t change it even if you wanted to.
2. God wrapped that need to believe in something greater than ourselves. The sad truth is that many, many people have, do and will follow the wrong things and the wrong people in this world.
3. Someone this morning did not leave the house without first consulting their sign, your horoscope.
4.What are you following this morning? I think it would be safe to say that life
is a journey and either we are moving toward God or we are moving away
from Him. And the direction we take is ours to make.
5. The Wise men journeyed to find answers to life’s many questions. All of us are seeking answers about life, about God.
6. Faith is that personal journey each one of us takes to try to find the meaning and purpose of life.
7. This morning who or what are you following? Have you ever been lost? Followed someone or something that promised you more but delivered less.
Illustration: My eldest daughter’s senior year was a year of much learning and growing in many areas. Jade was becoming more independent and with independence comes responsibilities. She had a car that she was paying the bills on. She did well paying the bills but she did poorly with the up keep of the vehicle. During the first year of having her car, she blew the motor out and had to get a new one put in. She had a few flats and one dead battery.
She wanted to go and spend some time with her grandparents that year for Christmas. They lived about three hours south of us and I figured this would be a great opportunity for Jade to experience some distance driving. She assured me she could do it and even knew the directions. I made sure she had a map, just in case, and sent her on her way.
She made it down there safe and sound without any troubles. Now coming home was a different story. I remember she called me and said she was on her way home. I noticed the time and thought I would see her in about three hours or so. Ooh how wrong was I. Three hours passed by and I called her on her cell phone to see what was the hold up. She told me she had no idea and had not even stopped to eat and that she was even running out of gas and was worried about making it home. She said she even thought about turning around or stopping to see why the drive seemed so much longer than it should. Come to find out, Jade had taken a wrong turn and was lost. She was a good two hours out of the way and was heading to the Missouri boarder.
Thank God we knew some people in the area and she was able to get some fuel and get back on the right direction. She made it safe at home later that night. She told me later that she just didn’t want to call me because she thought at her age she could figure it out on her own and didn’t want to depend on me.
8. Somebody here is lost as well. You have lost your way with God and though it may have crossed your mind you still have not changed your direction. .
9. It is difficult to admit when we are lost isn’t it. But you are out there, wandering in a circle and your life is going nowhere. You are headed in the wrong direction and you need to call your Father to get back on track. We need to stop depending on ourselves and start depending on our Heavenly Father.
B. But faith is a journey that not only requires a belief to follow but it must have a desire to go the distance.
1. Do you think that at anytime the Wise men were tired of traveling, had grown weary of the journey, and had at any time thought about turning back? I think so!
Illustration: A few years ago we took a family vacation during the hottest part of the summer. We were going to Worlds of Fun and to the Great Wolf lodge. Back then we had a minivan but it didn’t have any Air condition. It had it but it didn’t always work, we had to hit the dash board about every ten minutes or so to keep it going. Maybe some of you can relate to our adventure we had that summer. We were all piled on top of one another, kids were at each other’s throats and we were totally miserable because of the heat. At this point any future adventurous vacations that we may ever have in the future was in serious jeopardy!
2. We had to have a deep desire to be at Worlds of Fun and to be on the adventure or the whole thing would have been called off.
3. Faith requires that we go the distance and the key ingredient to be able to go the distance is desire. The Wise Men had that desire, and they traveled a long way for a very short visit but it changed their lives forever.
II. But not only is faith a journey, faith can produce conflict as well; an inner and outer struggle
A. When King Herod of Jesus’ birth we discover that he was troubled and not only the King, but all of Jerusalem with him. I thought that Jerusalem was the seat of the spiritual life of the Jews, that they had been waiting for this moment for centuries.
1. Real faith can sometimes bring real problems! Because a real faith will not allow us to play church. Pretend is a child’s game, not God’s. God desires us to mature within our Christian adventure. He wants us to grow up and stop playing childish games. He wants us to be more than we are.
2. It is not unusual for those who have a real relationship with God to feel the criticism of others who are made uncomfortable by your presence. Jesus was not even in Jerusalem but in Bethlehem yet he was not liked by some in Jerusalem at all.
3. A real faith can make a phony faith or a shallow faith very uncomfortable.
4. But the struggle at times, is not just with others but it is also within us. A real faith calls me to live for God and Him alone but I must confess I find myself at times fighting with God, or at least wrestling with Him as I want to control my own life at times.
5. There is a desire we often have of being in control of our own lives. We like being in the driver’s seat because then we can decide where to go. The problem is we don’t always know exactly where we’re going and we get lost.
VIDEO: “Dead End”
- How about you? Are you driving aimlessly? You think you know where you are headed but when it comes right down to it, you really have no idea.
6. Have you ever realized that this is so true for many of us? We really have no intention of seeking guidance from God until it is really too late. It isn’t until we hit a dead end in our lives when we finally reach to God for Guidance.
B. But faith also can produce conflict in that it does not always make sense.
1. Faith asks us to go blindly at times – to believe what we cannot see. In fact, faith is seeing what others cannot see and going where others will not go.
2. Surely a star this big, this bright, this unusual could be seen by more than just three wise men from out of town. Bethlehem could have been more than 12 miles from Jerusalem.
3. Yet there is no record of anyone else either from Jerusalem or from Bethlehem who followed the star. Surely others saw it?
5. How many of us see it each week as we come into the presence of God during out studies? How often do we see it but find ourselves simply ignoring the signs because the truth is that we are stubborn and we are afraid of the unknown. We fear what we can’t see.
4. Some of us this morning know what we need to do to find Jesus for our own lives as well, but we are not following that either. Truly faith is more than sight. It is following.
III. But Faith also expects a change doesn’t it.
A. In Matthew 2: verse 12 after the wise Men had seen Jesus we discover that they departed for their country by another way. The verse tells us:
12And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
1. The old way was still available to them but undoubtedly King Herod had laid a trap for them there so as to take their lives, so they went home another way. They changed their direction.
2. Any one of us this morning can change the direction of our lives, if we want to because Jesus is the change that each one of us needs.
3. In fact, if some of us don’t change directions we are going to fall prey to the traps that are awaiting us in the way that we have been headed.
4. If we prayed a different prayer this month, and if God answered it, our world might change in a heartbeat. It might change because we have decided to change. Because we have unwrapped Christmas and we have seen it for what it truly is.
VIDEO: “Christmas Love”
5. God wants us to change the way we see things and people of this world. He wants us to change because even though we are truly unlovely, He Love each one of us.
6. Have we changed? Can we change? Change is possible for us all.
Conclusion:
This morning what adventures have you been on – a cruise maybe, or a week in Tahiti, or maybe that European trip you have always wanted. Adventures can come in more than trips and travel plans.
As the Wise Men headed home, they were more than returning to see loved ones and friends again; they were on an adventure to live out the life of the Messiah that they had come so far to see. They returned to follow Him. The Wise men unwrapped Christmas and what they found they shared with the world as a free Loving gift to us all.
Faith is an adventure. Have you started your journey or is it just more than you want to give – to spend, at this time? Many people will spend thousands of dollars on that special trip they have long dreamed about, but they won’t spend the time of day on the trip that really matters, heaven.
But then some of us have thought about that trip – heaven; but could it be that we began the journey but we got lost along the way? This morning, right now you can get your bearings straight again and be headed in the right direction.
Jesus my friends is a change. Do you need a change in your life, in the way you live? Then I invite you to give your life to Christ and be on your way for the adventure of a lifetime.
