Several years back a life-style management consultant surveyed about 1000 people about how they prepared for Christmas. What he found was this:
· The average person spent up to an hour and 10 minutes a day during the last week of December bickering over holiday related plans such as what parties to attend, what to wear … and whether to leave early.
· People spent less than 17 minutes planning holiday purchases and 6 hours shopping for them with an average of 3 trips to the same store.
· Nearly 7 1/2 hours were spent baking and preparing the holiday meals while less than a 1/2 day is devoted to relaxation and enjoyment.
· And perhaps most tragic of all, on Christmas morning, the average parent spent just 9 minutes playing with the children.
(A study conducted by Michael Fortino, reported in the Dayton Sunday News, 12/20/92 (AP)
How do you prepare for Christmas?
Lots of stores have been preparing for Christmas ever since Halloween.
And many businesses are preparing for Christmas by planning parties and deciding how long they’re going to shut down for the holiday.
Families prepare by decorating their homes with trees and lights and festive garland. Some folks even go so far as to light up the night with Christmas lights in yards and roofs.
Just last week several wonderful people decorated church to reflect the joy of the season. And our church – and many others – are preparing for Christmas with:
· Special services
· Cantatas
· Bell choir presentations.
· Caroling to shut-ins
· Collections for the needy
But this year some Christians and Churches are facing a difficult dilemma, because this year Christmas falls on… Sunday.
There’s a ministers’ blogsite I frequent on the Internet, and one of the preachers there asked this question: “Christmas will fall on a Sunday this year. Will your church do anything different on that Sunday to accommodate the families in your fellowship?”
· One preacher responded: “I had hoped that our leaders might even have considered having simply the Christmas Eve service in the format of a morning worship, and not having a Sunday morning service. But that wasn’t received positively, so we’ll do both.”
· Another stated: “We are not having any services on Sunday the 25th - we are shifting to Friday, the 23rd - and having a Christmas Worship Extrava-palooza. We are having skits, dancing people, an iBand, traditional hymns, special music, and the Silent Monks - along with a Christmas message.”
As you might imagine, those answers troubled me and I said as much on that blog site. (pause) There are some on that site that aren’t very happy with me anymore.
Now, there may have been many reasons why these preachers were considering these changes to Sunday Worship:
· They were worried that people wouldn’t show up.
· They realized their members have other priorities.
· They believed it was inconvenient for some in their church to worship on Christmas morning.
· Or maybe they themselves had other plans and they didn’t want to go to church themselves that Sunday (and they were preachers)..
In the resulting back and forth of comments those who defended this casual approach to worshiping God gave several excuses… and even sited Scriptures to justify the idea that you didn’t have to have church on Sunday to worship God. But ultimately the reasons behind their decision were less about theology than about convenience.
Now, I could possibly see their arguments IF they didn’t regularly meet every other Sunday. Or if they called off church so their members could spend time with their families on important holidays like Easter, the 4th of July or Memorial Day weekend. But I doubt any of them do anything like that. It’s only Christmas that gets this special kind of treatment.
Why? Because “convenience’ was the key to what their decision.
ILLUS: One person observed that the message of Christmas was not one of convenience but “Cost”
* It cost Mary and Joseph the comforts of home to take a long journey to Bethlehem while she was “very” pregnant with her new child.
* It cost the shepherds their comfort by the campfire and the ease of their shepherd’s life answering the call to the manger and then the conviction to tell others the good news.
* It cost the wise men a long journey and expensive gifts and changed lives.
ULTIMATELY
* It cost the early Apostles and the early church persecution and sometimes death.
* It cost missionaries of Christ untold suffering and loss to spread the Good News.
* It cost Christian martyrs of all ages their lives for the sake of Christ.
MORE THAN ALL THIS
* It cost God the Father His own Son—He sent His Son to the earth to save men.
* It cost Jesus a life of sacrifice and service - and a cruel and horrible death.
The Christmas message is ultimately one of cost… not convenience.
In fact, that was the very heart of John the Baptist’s message:
Luke 3:4 tells us that Isaiah declared that a man like John the Baptist would come one day as “A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”
John the Baptist was chosen to PREPARE the way for Jesus.
That was his job. That was what he’d been called to do.
And just how did John “Prepare the way for the Lord?”
Well, he had one simple message: REPENT!!
Luke 3:3 tells us: “He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
Repent!
Change your life!
When people came to John to be baptized… he bluntly told them they needed to change. They needed to repent.
In Luke 3:7ff John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him:
“Produce fruit in keeping with repentance… ‘ Luke 3:8
The crowd asked him: "What should we do then?"
John answered, "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same." Vss 10b-11
Tax collectors also came to be baptized. "Teacher," they asked, "what should we do?"
"Don’t collect any more than you are required to," he told them. Vss 12-13
Then some soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?"
He replied, "Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely— be content with your pay." Vs 14
Everyone came to John KNOWING they were there to prepare themselves for coming Messiah. John made no secret about that. Every message drove home the fact that he had come to prepare them for the promised One of Israel.
The crowds knew he wasn’t talking to them about convenience… he clearly said it was about cost. So, they kept asking “What should we do?”
And everybody received the same message from John:
You need to Repent.
You need to Change.
Share with others. Give to others.
Live a holy life that’s worthy of your coming King.
So that’s how John said the Jews of that day were to prepare for Jesus.
How can you prepare for Christ this Christmas?
Well first, it’s all about WHERE you go.
In preparing for Christmas, people will go all kinds of places.
They’ll go to Target, or the Mall or to Walmart to buy gifts.
They’ll go to the hardware store to buy extension cords and decorations.
They’ll go to the grocery store for food for the Christmas meals.
People will go all kinds of places to prepare for Christmas.
When the people of Israel wanted to be prepared for their Messiah… they went to church. They went out into the wilderness to hear a preacher and hear him preach to them.
When Christmas falls on Sunday you quickly find out which preachers/ congregations/ church members make church a priority… and which ones don’t. To those who don’t, sermons aren’t all that important this Christmas.
But I recently read observations by a church growth expert on mistakes Churches make at Christmas. And one of the major mistakes churches make is in not offering a sermon. They replace the sermon with cantatas, and plays and Extrava-paloozas.
This church growth expert observed that
“The number one reason people decide whether or not to come back to a church they visited is how they felt about the preacher. I’m not advocating an hour message, it’s Christmas after all, but the preacher should have at least 15-20 minute message so he can engage newcomers and share with them his heart and teaching style.” (http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/156548-5-christmas-planning-tips-to-help-you-maximize-the-holiday-weekend.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily-Update)
That church growth expert has a point. But there’s an even more compelling reason why sermons should be preached on Christmas: they’re vital to God’s plan.
“… God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.”
1 Corinthians 1:21
And what is the message of all good preaching? It’s the message of the cross:
“… the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 1 Corinthians 1:18
No matter what Sunday that people come to church - even on Christmas - worshippers need to be brought into the presence of the cross of Jesus because its only at the foot of the cross that we receive the power of God.
So the message of the cross is the power of God.
BUT what is the message of the cross?
Repent!
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
The cross of Jesus is God’s declaration that our sins separate us from Him, and the cross declares that it is through Jesus that we deal with those sins.
And at that cross we find the same message John the Baptist preached:
Repent!
Change your life!
If that is the way God’s people prepared for the coming of Jesus the first time, every Biblically minded congregation will make that their highest priority during this season as well.
So the first thing we can do to prepare for Jesus is to commit ourselves to being in Church because THAT is where we’re confronted by the preaching that brings repentance.
To prepare for Jesus – first it’s all about where you go.
2nd ly – it’s all about what you do.
It’s not enough to hear a sermon about repentance and then to SAY we want to change. We actually have to decide to change.
ILLUS: A couple of years ago, OneNewsNow.com told of the observations of Michael Marcavage - executive director of Repent America. During a evangelistic effort he led in Florida during Spring Break of 2009, he made these observations.
"There was one man who was here (and he comes every year) and he had set up in one location and...[as] people were passing by him, he would just immediately talk to them and say ’repeat after me’ and would just give them what’s known as the sinner’s prayer. There was no repentance of sin," Marcavage notes.
"Also, many of the students on the beaches who profess to be Christians are engaged in drunkenness and also other types of sexually immoral behavior."
Those students professed Christianity… but what they really needed to do was change.
They needed was to hear the preaching of message of the cross.
They needed to come again to the foot of the cross and repent of the way they were living.
Now I’m hoping none of you have those types of sins in your lives, but the point is each of us – you and I – need to evaluate our lives and determine if there are things that need changed to prepare ourselves for Jesus.
So first, it’s all about where you go.
Secondly, it’s all about what you do.
Lastly – it’s all about what’s most important to you.
When John the Baptist preached - he understood that his main role was not to draw attention to himself. He was appointed by God to point people to the Son of God.
Isaiah declared that John the Baptist would be: "A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him” Luke 3:4
His job was all about making Jesus the most important thing in his life.
Later, when “The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ.”
But John said NO.
“John answered them all, ‘I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.’” Luke 3:15-16
ILLUS: A family celebrated Christmas every year with a birthday party for Jesus.
An extra chair of honor at the table became the family’s reminder of Jesus’ presence.
There was a cake with candles.
And they sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus.
They did this every year.
One year - on Christmas afternoon - a visitor to the home asked the five-year-old girl, "Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas?"
After a moment’s hesitation, she answered, "No, but then it’s not my birthday!"
(Aaron Burgess in a sermon on sermoncentral.com)
John the Baptist wasn’t worried about getting the attention because it wasn’t about him… it was about Jesus. All he wanted to do was make sure that he pointed people to Jesus.
And that should be our highest glory as well.
ILLUS: A woman told about the play their church put on one year. She said: My young daughter, Jana, was so excited about her part that I thought she was to be one of the main characters but she would never tell what part she played.
The parents were all there and one by one the children took their places. I could see the shepherds fidgeting in one corner of the Mary and Joseph stood solemnly behind the manger. In the back three young wise men waited impatiently. But still Jana sat quietly and confidently.
Then the teacher began: "A long time ago, Mary and Joseph had a baby and they named Him Jesus," she said. "And when Jesus was born, a bright star appeared over the stable."
On cue, Jana got up from her chair, picked up a large tin-foil star, walked behind Mary and Joseph and held the star up high for everyone to see.
When the teacher told about the shepherds coming to see the baby the three young shepherds came forward and Jana jiggled the star up and down excitedly to show them where to come.
When the wise men responded to their cue, Jana went forward a little to meet them and to lead the way, her face as alight as the real star might have been.
The playlet ended. We had refreshments. And on the way home Jana said, with great satisfaction, "I had the main part!"
"You did?" I questioned, wondering why she thought that.
"Yes," she said, "’cause I showed everybody how to find Jesus!"
That was the mission of John the Baptist, and that is our mission as well.
As you prepare for Christmas this season you need to set some priorities:
· Make it a priority to go to the right place.
· Make it your priority to do the right thing.
· And make it your priority to make Jesus your ultimate priority.
It’s only in this way that you truly prepare for the birth of Christ.
One last thing.
To prepare people for the coming of the Christ, John the Baptist called for “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
That hasn’t changed.
The Bible still tells us in this Christian age: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38
To come to Christ now, God expects us to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God; to repent of our sins; to confess Jesus as our Lord and Master, and to be baptized for the forgiveness of our sins.
Until you have done that, it doesn’t matter what else you do, you will never be prepared for the coming Jesus.
INVITATION:
