Unwrapping Christmas

Unwrapping Christmas

Your reaction to Christmas:

-To much work, to many things to do. I can hardly wait ! all the children will be home this year!

Stores are to crowded, traffic jams

-Different people react in different ways- some happy, some unhappy. To children toys & gifts, to adults food & family, to the store clerks, extra work & criticism from impatient people.

-Isn’t amazing that the birth of a baby nearly 20 centuries ago can still affect our lives today.

-The ACLU can try their best to remove this from our nation but what has happened will never change. No scholar can change or remove.

INTRODUCTION: A Charlie Brown Christmas

-The Peanuts gang is really getting into the spirit of Christmas

-Snoopy has decked out the doghouse with tinsel & lights

-Kids bought an aluminum tree for school play

-Charlie Brown is wondering “Is this what Christmas all about?” He has a problem.

-Linus: Lucy said out of all the Charlie Browns in the world, your the Charliest Brown of them all!

-He gets no Christmas cards

-He gets help from Lucy (the pyschirotrist)- 5 cents, She loves $$$$$

-He says he is depressed, its Christmas. She Exclaims to CB you need involvement. Be the director of the play.

-Lucy says she gets depressed to . Why? She never get’s what she wants for Christmas. She wants REAL ESTATE.

-Snoopy ‘s doghouse: CB reads a flyer. “The true meaning of Christmas, lights & display contest- win $$$$$”

-Charlie Brown- “My dog has gone commercial!”

-Sally (his baby sister) wants him to write a letter to Santa:

“Dear Santa-...... I want tens, twenties, etc....”

-Charlie Brown at school to direct play: goes & gets a tree

-all kids say - your stupid, hopeless

Charlie Brown exclaims: “Does anyone know what Christmas is all about!”

I. Luke 2:8-14

A. What happened?

Galatians 4:4-5 “But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”

-When did it happen? “When the fullness of the time was come.” Not one day too soon, not one minute to late.

B. How did it happen? He was born of a woman, Mary, a virgin.

Luke 1:35 “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow you: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”

C. Where did it happen? Bethlehem, a little village in Judea in the country of Palestine.

D. Why did it happen? To redeem mankind, to seek & to save that which is lost, to destroy the works of the Devil.

-John 3:16

-I Timothy 3:16

(Expound on the Christmas Experience)

*Galations 4:6-7

*Unwrapping Christmas: Salvation

*Will Christmas this year be an event or an experience? Will it be past history or present reality? It is up to you.

-Jesus Christ came for you! Will you come to him!