"So This Is Christmas" By Chris Ulrich December 21st,
2014 I’d
like to ask, Malcolm, if you
could lead in prayer? Malcolm:
Let us
bow our heads. God,
we thank You for
this opportunity to stand before You, to sit before You, to kneel
before Your throne,
Lord, God, that we might receive of You the Word that You have for us
today,
for our lives, for our spiritual enrichment, for the betterment of our
lives on
this earth before we meet You on Your throne.
In Jesus’ name we pray, anoint our brother, bless
him and keep him. Amen. Thank
you Malcolm. You
may be seated. Good
to see everyone this morning. That
was a nice, rousing rendition of, ‘Joy
to the World,’ as we kick of the service, here.
I have to ask a question before we get started here;
I know this is
going to be a tough one, but: Does
anybody
remember what the sun looks like?
Okay, I
know it’s been a while; it’s been a little dreary.
The forecast isn’t looking too good,
either. But, I was
just checking to make
sure. For those of
you keeping score at
home, is it today or tomorrow is the first day of winter? Between today and
tomorrow, okay, excellent,
excellent. Well,
the good thing is the
days are going to start getting longer, starting tomorrow. One other thing, for those
of you who were
here last winter, I’m going to sing a quick song, here, and it ties
into last
year as well as this year: Though
the weather outside is
frightful, NO! Not!
That is a not to that.
Last year—at
least we don’t have 2 feet of snow and at least it’s not -10. I’ve got to say that,
okay, if it’s cloudy, I
can deal with that; thirty-five degrees, I can deal with that, but,
after last
year, I do not want to let it snow.
I just
want to let everybody know that, and I think we’re all in this together. I’m
going to start this morning, I’m
going to kind of work my way backwards a little bit. Most
of us were here last week for Pastor
Paine and Debbie’s visit, and it was a tremendous time.
I know that a lot of us that were here have
talked about it, shared about it. I’m
certainly not going to try and re-preach his message and I couldn’t if
I wanted
to, either, but I believe we can all receive a blessing from that. I remember he asked a
couple of questions to
start, “How many would like to get something special for Christmas? How many would
like to give something
special for Christmas?”
He shared a
quick story about a customer that was at a Cracker Barrel restaurant
here in
the United States, and he didn’t get too specific, but, one of the
waitresses
was down on her luck, and they basically bought her a new car. It was something that, I
know Andy had asked
different people to share, and some of those things re financially
related. That’s
something that’s a huge
benefit; it’s something about being able to give back.
It’s something that’s important to people, I
mean, we’re not wanting to have to struggle all our lives, and I think
that has
a lot to do with being able to receive, but it is more blessed to give
than to
receive, like you shared, Terry, about you and Ken, just being able to
give
somebody a food-basket for them. Things
like that are important. He
talked about Christmas as a
child, and I think a lot of us could relate to a certain type of bike
he was interested
in getting. He’d
saved up quite a bit for
it, but, he was looking to buy a neighbor’s bike, down the street, and
his dad
was saying, “Well, what bike would you really
like?” Just before
he had enough money;
just before he had planned on buying that other bike, his dad got him
that
special bike, the one that really meant something.
But he shared some painful things; he shared
that, the very next year, his Mom had been stricken with a cerebral
hemorrhage
and she was confined to a nursing home, not only that year, but for the
rest of
her life. I think
that was a good ten
years afterwards. It
was something that
he shared, that he remembers visiting his mom in the hospital, or in
the nursing
home, with his father, and, because the condition affected her memory,
she
said, “I don’t have a son Pete.” Really,
it was something where he said that he felt sorry for himself; he got
really
down on himself, and I would have to say that I would feel the same,
and I
think we all can relate to that. But
his
dad pulled the car over, and he said, “You know what? just think about
all
those things to be thankful for. Think
about it—you couldn’t have had a better mother than you did for the ten
years
that you had growing up. And,
it was one
of those things where it's like, when he shared that, it hit home. I know that he has shared
that testimony over
the years; a lot of us are aware of that. I
know, as we enter into the
Christmas season-- I’m not going to sing another song—I’m going to say
I think
a lot of us have heard the old song, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of
the
Year,” but maybe that song just doesn’t do it for you.
Maybe depression has set in and whatever else
affects you and there’s no sugar-coating to alleviate the pain. One other point that
Pastor Paine mentioned
is that our Heavenly Father knows all our stories.
He knows what we’re dealing with; He knows
what our struggles are, and He knows what our victories are. I
told you I was going to work my
way backwards, I know that when his wife, Debbie, came up here to
share... There are
two things that I want to share,
and one is spiritual and one is not spiritual.
So I’m going to start with the not spiritual part: She had mentioned
that—now, she is originally
from Arkansas, her family is from Arkansas, and they moved up here in
the
70’s. I think she
was thirteen, fourteen. Anyway,
she shared that she tried so hard for
many years to mask over her southern accent.
As she was talking—now, I’ve known Debbie over 25
years and, when I
first moved up here, she was in her early thirties, and it just dawned
on me
last week, if you listen to her mom, and if you listen to her sister
Pam, who
lives down in Virginia, they clearly—they both have a distinct southern
accent. I mean,
there’s no if’s and’s or
but’s about it. I
thought the funny
thing about it was that—it’s a personal thing—and it was one of those
things
where it was like, because they had moved down to Virginia just a
couple of
years back, and it was something that she had tried to get over, for
whatever
reason—I think maybe it was just to be able to relate to people. The
other piece that she had
shared, I know, Malcolm, you had been proud of your son, and, Rebecca,
you were
here, but Debbie mentioned that when Joseph X. shared a testimony, that
she was
just talking about how much it ministered to her, and how well-spoken
he was. You know,
you could tell that he listens in
school, but he also listens in Sunday school.
I’ve got to say that as I sat back there—I was an
usher last week—how
old is your son? thirteen? Wow,
that’s
impressive. Not to
try to—we give glory
to God, ultimately, but I’ve got to say that I respect the upbringing
that you
two are giving him. And
there’s others
here. Along with
that, I’d like to segue
into Bill and Becky. I
know you’ve got
to be proud parents; your son, Pat, taught a Bible study this past
Wednesday at
the It’s All Good coffee shop. Yeah,
give the Lord a praise. Bob
has been
instrumental in keeping that going, and myself, and Bob, and Pat were
out—this
was maybe a month ago—and pat and some of his friends had seen a movie,
“God’s
Not Dead,” just the night before.
So, he
was sharing with us, and Bob was like, “Well, would you be interested
in
teaching a study about that?” He
was
like, “Sure.” So,
he and I worked
together, and I’ve got to say that when I was 17, I remember what I was
doing,
but it wasn’t teaching Bible studies.
I
can tell you that for sure. And,
Malcolm
and Rebecca, I can tell you, when I was 13, I wasn’t giving testimonies
in front
of a congregations; that’s for sure.
So,
hats off to those 2 young gentlemen.
I
appreciate their forthrightness, the willingness, their spirituality. That’s really what it’s
all about, I mean,
we’ve heard the expression that the youth are the church of tomorrow;
they’re
the church of today. We
are, too; it’s
not a competition It’s not a matter of, it’s like, “Oh, we should be
afraid. Oh, they’re
going to take
over.” It’s not;
God has something for
everybody. God has
something for
everybody. So,
now I’m going back two weeks
ago: Brother
Parrish, who’s in Baltimore
today, rooting for the Ravens—I don’t know why—but he preached a couple
of
weeks ago about the promise of Jesus.
He
talked about how when there is a promise there’s a hope. He asked us, “Have you
ever found yourself
looking for something that’s ahead?”
That got me thinking about, especially as a kid,
looking forward to
summer; looking forward to being off from school, or looking forward to
being
off from school for Christmas, or being off from school for—you get it,
you get
it. But, I think that we’ve always got to have something to look
forward to;
there’s always got to be anticipation.
I
think, even as Christians, I mean, ultimately, we look at our goal of
eternal
life, being with Christ, but there’s things to look forward to in this
lifetime. Whatever
it might be to you
personally. It
might be different
between two people; it might be different between me and whoever else
it
is. But, I know
that one other thing
that he shared from the heart was: his mom ran a day care center,
several years
ago, when she was still alive, He had been a Christian for a couple or
three
years, and he said that he was visiting them in Baltimore, and he had
gone to
pay her a visit this one day—and this was during the Christmas
holidays—they
were going to put on a play, or some kind of a presentation, and he
said it was
very unfancy. I
mean, it was about as
unglamorous as you could possible imagine, just the way he was
describing
it. But, he said as
they got started,
there was a part of the play, where one of the kids did the song,
“Little
Drummer Boy,” and there’s a line in the song, “I have no gift to bring,
rum-pum-pum-pum.” I
think we’ve all
heard it. I
actually heard it on the
radio as I was coming in this morning. God
showed him at that moment that he was that
little boy that has no gift to bring.
It’s something that god has that gift for us. God has something that’s
eternal. So,
where does that put us this
morning? Sometimes
we feel like we’ve
got no gift to bring. We
have our faith
in God; you’ve got to trust in God.
It’s
something that it’s personal; we don’t always know everybody’s
background, we
don’t know everybody’s—whether they had a good, bad, or somewhere
in-between. I’m
going to touch on that a
little more later. Lamentations 3:22-26 It is of the LORD's
mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every
morning: great is thy
faithfulness. The
LORD is my portion,
saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the
soul that seeketh
him. It is good
that a man should both
hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. So,
there’s a quietness and a hope
in that salvation that we wait for.
Sometimes, it might just seem like a struggle, and
it might seem like,
“How long is it going to take?” or, “How much longer are we going to
have to
put up with a world that seems to be getting worse?”
I’m going to touch on that a little bit. The Bible says that
iniquity shall abound and
the love of any shall wax cold (Matthew 24:12).
That Scripture is true throughout the year; that’s
not just a, “Well,
when it’s not the Christmas season…”
There’s
a line in a show called, “Seinfeld,” I think a lot of people have heard
of
it—it’s a little bit older, but--t here’s a scene in there where one of
the guys
is in the midst of writing a sitcom, and he gets a growth on his
face—now, this
is a comedy—so, he’s all uptight about that, and, so he goes to his
therapist—he
does go to the doctor, but he also goes to his therapist—and he says to
her,
“God would never let me be successful, he’d kill me first!” She said, “I thought you
didn’t believe in
God,” and he said, “I do, for the bad things.”
It got me to thinking, sometimes, you know, if
you’re thinking that God
only trying to get our attention during a catastrophic event, during a
tsunami,
during a terrorist attack, or some kind of conflict, or some kind of
plague, or
some kind of holocaust, or whatever else comes along, or tragedy… But, the thing is, God gets
our attention
through the hospitality of others.
He
gets our attention through the quietness of the morning. He gets our attention
through that still,
small voice. Something
that ties in with
what Parrish was sharing about hearing “A Little Drummer Boy,” He gets
our
attention a lot of times when we least expect it, and in ways that we
could
never possibly imagine. We
know that it
is His infinite love that draws us in. 1 John 4:6-9
We are
of God: he that knoweth God heareth
us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of
truth,
and the spirit of error. Beloved,
let us
love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born
of God,
and knoweth God. He
that loveth not
knoweth not God; for God is love.
In
this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent
his only
begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. I
think we’ve all heard that the
Christmas message and Jesus dying on the cross, or His birth,
really—Andy
mentioned about Easter-time, but it’s all the same thing; we evaluate
the life
of Christ, and we understand that, okay, it’s for everyone, and that’s
true. But more than
anything, we’ve got
to know that it’s for you and me as individuals and that’s what matters
most. My first
point today is that we
have to maintain a personal walk with God that is for a lifetime. It’s not just having some
experience with
God, or, it’s not a shooting star, or, it’s not a get-rich quick
scheme, or
anything like that where… Because
as we
go through life we’re going to meet a lot of different people, but, you
know,
we’re going to not meet a lot of people too.
When you think about the populations, and people
that are actually here,
people that, if you just drive down to the city, you see car after car
after
car, and building after building after building, and just look around,
you
think that it could be a daunting view of, like okay, if we’re up
against the
world. Well, we’re
not up against the
world, if we’re trusting in God. If
we
commit our works to God, if we trust in Him. I
know that might sound a little callous, but
what difference does it make whether we meet everybody else or not? I think we’ve all heard
the expression, “Oh,
you’ve got to meet this person,” “You’ve got to meet her,” “You’ve got
meet
them,” “You’ve got
to meet this great
talker,” or whatever happens to be the case.
It’s like, “Why?”
Why do I need
to—and I’m not saying it’s a matter of trying to be disrespectful, or
combative, or argue with people, but I think a lot of it comes down to,
okay,
how many have ever run into a celebrity, whether it’s just seeing them,
or… Okay, I’m not
actually going to—the
point, really is that, I think, sometimes, they live inside I guess
what you
would call, you know, sort of a glass house.
The truth of the matter is, we can’t be envious. I think we have to be
respectful as human
beings, just in general. If
I’m walking
through the store, and I happen to comme across some famous athlete, or
newscaster, or whatever the case might be, it’s like, okay. I think a lot of times,
they see people as
trying to, like, impose on them, which I think is the case. I think that’s the case,
but, the truth is, I’d
rather know Jesus. I
mean, it’s not even
close. It’s not
even close. When
you stop to think about it, what do they
really have to offer, or what does God have to offer us? And, in return, knowing
God, what do we have
to offer them? Well,
we have a lot to
offer. Don’t get me wrong, I want
to be friends and have
5,000 LinkedIn connections and 10,000 friends on Facebook, and about a
million
followers on Twitter. Oh
yeah! But, after a
while, it’s like, okay, by far
what’s more important is having a personal relationship with God that
will
stand the test of time. The
second point is a nugget of
gold from last week: We don’t live in a peaceful world but we have
peace in God. I’m
going to break away from my notes a
little bit; I thought about that this morning, because there’s a few
directions
I want to go with this. There’s
a lot of
problems in America, today, and it’s like a powder keg just waiting to
erupt. Here’s a lot
of racial problems;
there was a killing in Ferguson, there was a killing of a guy in New
York
City. Yesterday,
there were two cops
that were just assassinated; I mean, the guy came up blew them away,
and posted
some things on-line… I
want to back up:
two weeks ago, Parrish had shared something that—it was funny the way
he did,
because he impersonated the guy from ‘The Godfather.’
How many knows the movie, ‘The
Godfather?’ A lot
of people; some people
don’t, okay. Well,
it was set in the
1940’s, and it was about the crime families of New York, and it was
about,
like, this hit, and that hit, and then, this family got hit, and then
this
family murdered this other family, and then they killed… It was just on and on and
on, and the way
Parrish was impersonating it, it was like, you know, Don Corleone—I
thought it
was pretty good. But,
the thing is, when
does it stop? Here’s
the thing, in
Christianity, I get that it’s different; we’re in
the world, but we’re not of
the world. I get
that there’s problems,
and it would be easy to say, “I’m white, I’m going to side with the
whites,” “I’m
black, I’m going to side with the blacks,” “I’m Latino, I’m going to
side with
the…” you know. But,
I tell you this
much, I’ve seen the protests signs that said, “Black lives matter.” I’m here to tell you that
black lives
matter. Latino lies
matter. Asian lives
matter. White lives
matter. American
Indian lives matter. People
that are racially mixed, their lives
matter. Everybody’s
life matters, but,
you know what? outside Christianity, who knows, really, what people are
thinking? I get
that there’s a lot of
different ideologies, or a lot of different agendas, or a lot of people
that
have the vengeance factor, or a lot of people that just want to keep
people
down, the oppressive factors, and it goes on and on and on. When is it going to stop?
It’s not going to
stop; I’m going to tell you that right now.
It’s not going to stop.
You look
at the Middle East. The
Palestinians hit
the Israelis, the Israelis hit them; back and forth, back and forth. The problems in the Middle
East go way, way
long time ago. It
goes back a long,
long, long way, more than just, you know, the last ten years. I mean, you think about
thousands of years,
but, ultimately—some people say, “Oh, it’s all about religion.” No, it’s not all about
religion. It is all
about people that oppose the truth
of God. There is a
lot of that. There
is evil in the world. That
is a fact. We’re
not going to sugarcoat it, or say, “No,
no, everything’s fine. Everything’s
great!” and put our head in the sand, “It’s all going to go away, and
it’s all
going to be beautiful.” That’s
not going
to happen. I’m not
going to sit here and
say it’s going to keep worsening, but I am going to say, again, going
back,
iniquity shall abound, and the love of many shall wax cold; that’s
Matthew
chapter 24, when the disciples asked Christ about, “What are the signs
of the
end of the world?” I
think it’d be easy
to get riled up, I mean, I’m going to ask a question, here: At what point do we really
just enjoy the joy
of God? I’m asking
that, and I’m hoping—I’m
going to repeat that: At
what point do
we enjoy the joy of God? I’m
not saying
that I’m looking forward to it getting so bad that I end up in prison,
or end
up getting tortured… Anybody
that thinks
that, that’s just ridiculous, but the truth is I want to trust in God
in
advance of anything really bad happening to have the power to deal with
whatever happens. Things
are going to
come along, and who knows how much worse it can possibly get, but I
imagine
that it will, because the Bible does prophecy about it.
I know that we can’t have everything figured
out, either, I mean, it’s not as though we have to have everything
planned
out. There was a
song I heard, years ago,
and maybe you’ve heard something like this along your journey, too. It’s “Life is a mystery to
be lived, not a
problem to be solved.” There
is going to
be problems in this world, and I think, you know, I know who I’m
talking to;
that we’re aware of that. I’m
not going
to try to beat that into the ground, or to death.
A lot of the trusting in God is about building
up strength in God o be able to survive and to be able to prosper, and
to be
able to be strong in God John 14:26-27 But the Comforter,
which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall
teach
you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I
have
said unto you. Peace
I leave with you,
my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let
not
your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. I
want to go back, one more time,
and reiterate something Pastor Paine alluded to last week; that we can
have
quite a wide spectrum of emotions for people at this time of year. I want to hit home a
little bit more on the—sometimes
we might think that we have a right to feel sorry for ourselves, to be
bitter, to
feel vengeful towards someone or something.
I know I do, or just pick any emotion that breeds
negativity and I think
everyone understands that. I’m
certainly
not going to sit here and say I haven’t been in that boat, but the
question I
have to ask us and I emphasize us (myself included) is do we really
want to
dwell there? I
mean, I heard this—this was
years ago—this was an interview with a father who lost his son in Viet
Nam. The
interviewer just said, “Are you bitter?”
He was like, “You’re blankety-blankety blank,
I’m bitter!” and it was like—I don’t know how long it was after that
happened,
but, let’s just say it was ten years, and it was the kind of thing
where it’s
like, the Bible talks about having a root of bitterness whereby many be
defiled
(Hebrews 12:15). It’s
like, who is that
bitterness directed at? That
movie that Pat taught that
Bible study on, Wednesday night, ‘God Is Not Dead,’ there was an
interesting part—and
I’d recommend it; it’s not all glitzy, or like a huge, huge budget, or…
but it’s
good, it’s clean, it’s got good dialog…
I’m not going to spoil it all by giving away the
plot, but, it comes to
find out,, there’s this one part where this professor, he just, he’s
got a
hatred towards God. But,
it’s like—and what
did it result from? It
could have been
something that happened in his youth; it could have been something that
happened last week. It
could have been
just a pile of circumstances that just accumulated over time, or
feeling sorry
for himself. I
mean, I know, again, that’s
the kind of thing where it’s like, if you feel like, “Well, I missed
out on this.
I don’t have
that. I wasn’t able
to get this job. I
wasn’t able to get that relationship,” or whatever
the case might be, but the thing that Pastor Paine’s dad shared with
him, “Be
thankful. Be thankful for all those years that you had with your mom.” Be thankful for still
having a house. I
know that sometimes we’re dealing with
something that’s almost—maybe we’re dealing with somebody that’s lost
their
job; dealing with something that would be considered dire circumstances. But, that was the main
part of the equation
that his dad used to emphasize, to help get over that hurdle. I
know I’ve referred to last
week’s message a lot today; it’s been kind of a revisit the blessing
kind of
recap. For those
who weren’t here last
week I certainly hope that today has helped recreate the scene a little
bit. For
those that were here, I believe that a
message like that puts meat on our bones and it sustains us. I mean, we have, you know,
the bishop of our
church, who has an anointing like that, that’s something that—he’s not
going to
be around forever. None
of us are, but,
I mean, he’s sixty years old, now, and something like that, you have to
look
at, like, the passage of time. I
mean,
it happens; it’s just the natural course of events in life, and I think
it’s
good a lot of times to just appreciate people while they’re still here
instead
of eulogizing them after they’re gone.
People
appreciate that, too. We’re
getting close to the end of
this year and I’m also getting close to the end of this message. Another year over and a
new one just
begun. “So this is
Christmas” that’s
actually the title of song. It’s
kind of
a non-traditional song that came out maybe forty years ago. Another year over and a new
one just
begun. What do you
want for Christmas
this year? What do
want to give for
Christmas this year? Isaiah 9:6-7
For
unto us a child is born, unto us a son
is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name
shall be
called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father,
The
Prince of Peace. Of
the increase of his
government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David,
and upon
his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with
justice
from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will
perform this. I
know we used this verse quite a
bit here this month, but it does bear repeating.
Sort of like the gift that keeps on
giving. I suppose
most of us did receive
gifts as children that, those memories are instilled in us. Honda motors started doing
some commercials
here, in the last month or so, that start something like, “Remember
when you
got Stretch Armstrong? or Remember when you got Strawberry Shortcake?”
or Remember
when you got me, Skeletor for Christmas?”
And the whole reason behind that is—I don’t drive a
Honda but they’re
very effective commercials, in kind of charging our memories. I think the Christmas gift
I remember getting
was—does anybody remember Mattel Electronics Football? You, Mike?
Good, because I’ve got one for you.
The next year they came out with Mattel Electronics
Football Part 2.
I loved them! Part
2 you could
pass, whereas the first one you couldn’t.
But, you know, those gifts are quite long gone. You’d probably have to or
buy them on E-bay
or Amazon or go to a yard sale if you wanted to find those. They don’t sell them in
stores anymore, I
mean, we’re going back quite a ways.
I
know that, you know, when I go to visit my folks, I’ll look at old
photo albums,
and one thing I’ve noticed, speaking of football, me and my brother, we
always
had these different teams jerseys.
Not
just the Patriots, but the Chargers, the Saints, and just on and on,
so, Mike—Mike
always wears a different hat of a different team every week. So, we don’t really know
what his affiliation
is, but I just wanted to bring that up.
Mike really does like the Patriots. But I think you know where
I’m going, as I
wrap this up. It
doesn’t really matter
what our background is, where we’re from, or how old we are, whether we
had a
great upbringing, or maybe not very enjoyable at all—I know some of you
have
shared those things—or maybe it was somewhere in between. It doesn’t matter if we
had a great
upbringing, an unfortunate one, or probably somewhere in between. The gift of the message of
Jesus Christ never
grows old and it is the original gift that keeps on giving. I
want to thank you all for your
attendance this morning; I appreciate everybody’s attention. I look forward to what God
has for us this
next week, and next year. God
bless you
all, and Merry Christmas!
|
|
|
|
