Rick Warren - Enjoying a Fear-Not Christmas—Part One

Hi, I'm Rick Warren, and Merry Christmas. Christmas is going

to be here very soon, and Jesus said in Luke

fourteen twenty three, go out into the highways in the

countryside and urge everybody you find to come in so

that my house will be full.

Who are you thinking of to bring to your church?

Whoever it is.

I want to challenge you to be a light at

Christmas and invite them to services.

At your church.

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone.

This is Pastor Rick's daily hope, and on this holy night,

we're going to celebrate the hope that entered the world

through Jesus Christ. So, whether you're with family, alone, or

somewhere in between, we're so glad you've joined us for

this special moment.

So let's join Rick with a.

Very special message called enjoying a Fear not Christmas.

Everybody has secret fears, I do you do.

It may be the fear that if everybody the real me,

they wouldn't like me. That's a legitimate fear a lot

of people have. Then there's the fear of insignificance, that

my life really won't matter. There's the fear of dying alone.

There's the fear that my secret will be found out.

There's a fear that I'll never ever really be loved

or find true love again. It is a significant fact

that at the first Christmas, four times the phrase do

not be afraid is used. The angels had to say

it to Mary, had to say it to Joseph, had

to say it to the shepherds, had to say it

to a priest named Zachariah. Four times. In the Christmas story,

God says, don't be afraid. Now today we know the

news of the birth of Jesus Christ as good news

because we know what's going to happen. But it wasn't

good news to the people who heard it the first time.

In fact, it scared everybody to death. Maybe you don't

realize this, but in the first story, everybody was afraid.

Mary was afraid, Joseph was afraid, Herod's afraid, shepherds are afraid, zachariaser.

In fact, the Bible.

Tells us the entire city of Jerusalem panicked when the

news that the Messiah had been born. Every one of

the main characters had to deal with a different kind

of fear. And what was interesting is I reread the

Christmas story this week, I was struck by the fact

that you and I still deal with the same fears today,

two thousand years later. You have the exact same five

fears that they dealt with in the very first Christmas.

And in many ways, it was a tough year. Everybody

agree with that. I mean, you look at the headlines

last year. It seemed like every week there's a terrorism

attack around the world. There's mass shootings in schools and

other places, there's racial tension, there's injustice, there's violence in

the street, there's civil wars in the Middle East, and

then the biggest refugee crisis in our lifetime. Right now,

millions and millions and millions of people will not be

home for Christmas because they'll be in refugee camps. And

so for millions of people, this Christmas is not a

merry Christmas. It's a scary Christmas. And what we're looking

at for millions of people this Christmas holiday season is

not a season of cheerfulness, but a season of fearfulness.

But the message of Christmas is this, don't be afraid.

God says it four times. I don't want you to

be free. It is not God's will that you walk

around being afraid of anything.

It's just not.

And so today I want us to look at the

Christmas story and how to defeat the fears that holds

you back, that keep you from being all well, God

wants you to be. What I want to do is

pretty simple. I want to quickly go through the five

common fears that they dealt with at the very first Christmas.

And then I want to ask you how does that

apply to you? And then I want to show you

the antidote to living with fear. I'm going to show

you the secret of being fear free based on what

God told them to do at the very first Christmas. Now,

first let's identify the fears that they had at the

first Christmas. Let's start with Mary. You might write this

down if you're taking notes. Mary had to deal with

the fear of inadequacy. The fear of inadequacy. Now you

know the story. One day an angel appears to this

young peasant girl and Israeli no education, poor. And the

angel says to Mary, God is going to keep his promise.

He's been promising to come to earth for thousands of years.

The Messiah, the chosen One, the Son of God, is

coming he's going to come as a baby, and by

the way, you get to be the mother would create

a fear of inadequacy in anybody's life. There at least

a dozen reasons why she should fear inadequate. She's a teenager.

In those days, people married as early as twelve years

of age. She was probably at the most fifteen or

sixteen years of age. She's a teenager. Second, she's unmarried.

She's a virgin. She's never had relationships with a man,

so she doesn't.

Know anything about this.

Number Three, she's engaged to a guy named jos How

is she going to explain this one to her fiance? Fourth,

she is told that the child is going to be

the promised son of God that put the fear of

God in anybody. Okay, you're going to raise a perfect child.

Then then, fifth, how do you explain this to your

mom and your friends? Now, if you were a mother

and your teenage daughter comes to you and says, Mom,

I've never had sex, but I'm pregnant and God's the daddy, right,

would you believe that? Would you believe that? I don't

think so. I'm gonna explain that. And then, because her

fiance they're taking a census, a Roman census. Her fiance

has to go to his birth town. And so the

day before she delivers, the last day of pregnancy, she

has to write a donkey on a long journey. I

don't know any pregnant woman who'd like to do that

on the last day of pregnancy, write a donkey on

a long journey. Then she has to deliver her first

child by herself.

In a barn.

No doctor, no mom, no sisters, no aunts, no midwife.

That would create inadequacy. And then the lifelong task of

raising the son of God. All of these things would

create a fear of inadequacy. Bible tells it like this

in Luke chapter one. Confused and disturbed, Mary tried not

to think, or tried to think what the angel could mean.

So the Angel said, do not be afraid you might

circle at That's the first the four times, for God

has decided to bless you and to use you. I'm

sure she's thinking, no, thanks God, you will have a son.

You're to name him Jesus. He will be the Son

of God. His kingdom will never end. And then Mary

asked a very natural question, how can this be? How

can this be? A sense of inadequacy. You'd probably ask

the same thing. I certainly would. It's not good news,

that's intimidating news. Now, Joseph, for fiance faces a whole

different fear, and you might write this down. Joseph faced

the fear of disapproval, the fear of disapproval. So think

about this. Imagine your fiance tells you she's pregnant. You

know you've never had sex with her, and then she

claims God made me pregnant and the baby is the

son of God. Right, how are you going to explain

that to the community. It's a small town. Everybody knows

everything in town. Gossip spreads quickly. How do you explain

that to your business associates, to your friends. Imagine the ridicule,

the shame, the gossip, the criticism heaped on Joseph. That

guy she's taken in for a ride. If he believes

that story, he's nuts. I mean, she's just got him

hook line and sinker. Sure, he's telling me that his

fiance is pregnant. He's not the dad. The dad has

got Joseph's first reaction to Mary's story was actually disbelieved,

and he was going to break off the engagement. You know,

I love you, honey, but I'm not buying this story.

And he privately decided that he was going to quietly

break off the engagement. He wasn't gonna embarrass her. He

loved her, he didn't want to make a scandal, but

he was just going to end it right there because

of the fear of disapproval of other people. And the

Bible tells it like this, Matthew, chapter one. Now, this

is how Jesus Christ was born. His mother, Mary was

engaged to be married to Joseph, but while she was

still a virgin, she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Now, Joseph,

her fiance, being a good and righteous dude.

That's the word in the Greek there, that dude.

He's a good dude, decided to break off the engagement

quietly so it would not disgrace Mary publicly.

He's a good guy.

But after he had considered doing this, an angel, the

Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph,

do not be afraid.

There's a second.

Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife,

because the child in her is really from God's Holy Spirit.

So just like with Mary, God has to tell Joseph

fear not. Now, let me ask you a question. Who's

disapproval are you afraid of? Whose disapproval are you afraid of?

Let me ask you another way, whose approval are you

living for?

Talk about that in just a minute.

The Bible says that the fear of disapproval is a trap.

In other words, the moment I start worrying about what

you think of me, I'm dead in the water.

The moment you start worrying.

About what other people think of you, You're gonna miss

God's plan for your life everybody. God has a plan

for your life, and so does everybody else. You got

to decide whether you're gonna be a God pleaser or

an everybody else pleaser.

You're gonna be a people pleaser.

Joseph could have missed the greatest blessing of his life,

getting to be the step dad of the Son of God,

if he had worried about the disapproval of other people.

But I don't really care about what other people think.

I'm gonna do this because it's the right thing to do.

But it was a fear he had to deal with.

Now next, there's another group in the first story, called

the shepherds. And if you want to write this down,

the shepherds faced the fear of sudden change, the fear

of sudden change. Now here's the picture. The shepherds are

out in the fields watching their flocks the night Jesus

is born. The shepherds are kind of an easy come,

easy go. They're kind of like surfers, you know, they

just take everything easily. It's not a real stressful job,

you know, watching sheep. That night, they've put the sheep

down for the night. They're sitting around the campfire. They've

had dinner. They probably playing cards and you know, just

having a good time. All of a sudden, the skylights

up brilliantly.

And remember this is the.

Day before electricity, electric lights and lasers, and they haven't

seen anything bright at night. Ever, the skylights up brilliantly,

and the sky is filled with angels singing loudly in

a choir. Now they've never seen angels. For all they know,

this could be ets extraterrestrials. And anyway, it scared them

to death because their plans for a quiet evening were

shaken up.

There was a sudden change. And the Bible says this,

and Luke too.

That night, some shepherds were in the field outside the

village guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, you might circle

that word sudden, because this is the fear of sudden change.

Suddenly, an angel.

Of the Lord appeared to them, and the radiance of

the Lord's glory flashed. I mean it's like boom, like

an explosion flashed and surrounded them. This light surrounded them,

and they were terribly frightened. Well, I guess so. So

the angel said to them, do not be afraid third time.

You like to be caught off guard. No, you like

to have your plans changed? No. And the reason why

is because when that happens, adrenaline shoots through your system

and you get that fight or flight syndroment. It's not

very comfortable having your plans changed suddenly. But I want

to tell you this, I've walked with God now for

over fifty years.

I'm a friend of God.

I know him better than I know you, if I

talk to him all the time, more than I talk

to you. And yet, even though I've known God for

over fifty years, sometimes when God shows up in your life,

it's scary, it's unsettling. He just all of a sudden

shows up and oh what was that all about? And

that's what happened here. It was the fear of sudden change.

But God doesn't want to scare you. That's why he says,

don't be afraid, don't be afraid, don't be afraid. Now,

there's another character in the story who had to deal

with panic when Jesus' birth was announced, and his name

was Herod. Herod was the king of the Jews. He

was actually king of Judea, and he was actually hated

by the Jews because he wasn't even actually a full Jew.

And Herod was paranoid of losing his throne. He was

so paranoid of conspiracy theories. History tells us, not just

the Bible, but the history books tell us that Herod

had his brother in law killed for fear of him

taken over his throne, had his mother killed, had his

wife assassinated, and had his two sons assassinated.

That's pretty paranoid.

When he hears that Jesus quote the king of the

Jews is being born, he freaks out.

He didn't want his.

Throne, so he orders this is known history, orders the

death of every baby in Israel under two years of

age to try to prevent Jesus from being born, and

actually Mary and Joseph are warned in a dream. They

take Jesus to Egypt. Jesus fends his early years in Egypt.

Then they don't return to Nazareth until Herod dies, but

he was panicked. Matthew chapter two tells his story about fear.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem during the time that Herod

was the King of the Jews. And then some wise

men these are probably scientific guys who studied the stars

from the east, more likely Babylon to the probably Iraqis.

It was the Iraqis who came to see Jesus before

the Jews did. Then some wise men from the east

came to Jerusalem and started asking where is the king,

the child born to be king of the Jews. We

saw his star in the east, and we have come

to worship him. And when King here had heard this news,

he was deeply frightened. As I said, it freaked him out.

He's disturbed, and it says, and so was everybody else

in Jerusalem. You know, we at Christmas sing the song

Silent Night, Holy Night, all this calm, but it wasn't

calm for Jerusalem. It says the whole city got nervous.

Everybody's afraid. Mary's afraid, Joseph's afraid, the Shepherd's afraid, Herod's afraid.

The entire town of Jerusalem. What's just happened here? Some

important people from out of the country show up and say,

the king of the Jews been war? What's going on?

And finally there was an old priest named Zachariah. And

Zachari had worked in the temple in Jerusalem for many,

many years, and his wife was named Elizabeth. Now Elizabeth

was the cousin of Mary. And so when Mary gets

pregnant unwed pregnancy, they did what they used to do

with unwed pregnant teenagers. They ship them out of town

so she wouldn't have to deal with the stigma and

the gossip for nine months. So Mary goes to live

with her cousin Elizabeth and her husband, Zachariah. Now Elizabeth

and Zacharia were good people, and they were now up

in Asia, and they had prayed their entire life for

a child.

They wanted a child so bad, and.

They prayed and they prayed, and they prayed, and they prayed,

but their prayer was never answered, and they are they've

finally given up hope because they're up in ears and

they know we're not gonna have it. We're past child

bearing years and we're not gonna have a baby. And

they had just given up hope and they were afraid

to hope because they've been disappointed so many times. Now

this is the fifth fear. And Zachariah faced the fear

of being disappointed, fear of being disappointed.

Now this is a real issue.

One day, God shows up to Zachariah in the temple,

sends an angel, and the angel says, hey, you know, Zacharai,

that prayer you've been praying all these years for baby,

and Zacharios yeah. He goes, well, it's gonna happen. Now,

you're gonna have a baby. It's gonna be a miracle.

Boy late in life, you're gonna have your wife's gonna

get pregnant. Zachari had been disappointed so many times.

He just didn't believe it. He didn't believe God.

He doubted because I don't want I don't want to

trust again. I don't want to hope again. I don't

want to believe again, I've been disappointed so many times.

Some of you can relate to the fear of disappointment

that holds people back.

Luke Chapter one.

While serving in the temple, an angel appeared to Zachariah.

And when he saw the angel, Zachariah was confused and

overwhelmed with fear. But the angel said to him, what

do you think. The angel said, yeah, don't be afraid.

Do not be afraid. Your prayer has been heard. So again,

God at the Christmas Story says has to say.

Fear not.

Are you getting the point that God doesn't.

Want people to be fearful.

Whenever you're fearing something, you are not in God's will

at that moment. By the way, Zachariah's long awaited son,

you may have heard of him.

He grew up to be called.

John the Baptist, John the Baptist, and John the Baptist

was the forerunner, kind of the announcer of the Messiah,

who said He's coming. Get ready, God's landing on earth,

the greatest invasion in history. God is coming in human form.

And that guy was named John the Baptist. Now, question,

which of these five fears are holding you back this Christmas?

The fear of inadequacy is one we can all relate to.

It's this thing, Am I good enough? Do I have

the right stuff? Can I handle all that life throws

at me? Am I up for the task? Sometimes the

fear of inadequacy becomes so big, I'm not even going

to try for my dream because I know it won't happen.

I'm not even gonna try. Going to give up the

fear of inadequacy that I can't handle it. I'm not

as smart, I'm not as cute, I'm not as intelligent,

I'm not as educated, I'm not as wealthy as somebody else.

The fear of inadequacy.

How about maybe you're struggling with the fear of disapproval

and you hate to be criticized, your thin skinned you'd

rather go along to get along. You hate the fear

of rejection, and so you have become a people pleaser

and you're not really living your life. You're not living

the life God intended for you. You're living a life

to please everybody else. Some of you are trying to

please your parents, and they died ten years ago, but

you're still trying to prove I'm worthy, I'm okay if

you didn't get somebody's approved by Now, I hate tell

you this, you're not going to get it. But here's

the good news. You don't need it. You don't need

anybody's else approval to be happy. I don't need your

approval to be happy. You don't need my approval to

be happy. Happiness is a choice, and you choose. You're

as happy as you choose to be. You know, Vince Lombardi,

that great coach of the Packers, once said, fear makes

cowards of all of us.

It's true. It does. The fear of disapproval.

Some of you have the fear of sudden change and

you hate change. Well, I hate to tell you this.

The only thing constant in life is change. And if

you get stressed out by change, you're going to be

stressed your entire life because everything changes day after day, week, month,

year after year. You got to learn how to not

be fearful in a time of rapid or sudden change.

How about the fear of losing control. Oh that's a

big one.

You know.

I don't want anybody messing with my plans. How do

you know when you have the fear of losing control? Well,

there's a warning light that goes off. God put it

in you every time you have the fear of losing control.

You know what it's called. That warning light is called.

Worry.

Are any of you familiar with this term worry? Worry means,

at that moment you're playing God, you're trying to control

the uncontrollable. You're worried about some Worry doesn't change anything.

It can't control anything. Worry can't change the past. Worry

can't control the future. All worry does is mess up today.

How do you know when someone is filled with the

fear of losing control, they try to control everybody else.

The more insecure you are in life, the more controlling

you will try to be of other people.

So when you find.

Somebody who's judgmental, they're judging you and everybody else, and

they're perfectionists and they're calling you into account and they're

trying to control you, they can't even control themselves. And

the more insecure, the more fearful I am inside, the

more controlling I will try to be of you. If

I'm secure in my relationship to God, I don't need

to control you. I don't need to control your opinions.

I don't need to control your behavior. I don't need

to control anything about you because I'm not worried about

losing control. I've already given control of my life to God.

This is a fear. How about the fear of being disappointed?

Some of you have thought, I'm never going to let

another man get close to me. I'm never going to

let another woman break my heart. I'm never going to

go after that dream. I'm not even going to try.

I am afraid to trust. I'm afraid to believe. I'm

afraid to believe in God. I might be disappointed. I'm

afraid to give my life to God. I might be disappointed.

I'm afraid to hope again. Which of these fears have

you been dealing with now? If any of these ring

true in your life, you really need the message of Christmas.

And you picked a good church to come to you

on Christmas, because I'm going to teach you now the

four solutions to living fear free. How do I get

the fear out of my life that blocks me, that

keeps me from becoming all I want to be, all

that God wants me to be. You do the things

that God told them to do at the very first

Christmas that's what you do. And if you do what

God told Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and everybody

else what to do, the fears in your life will

dramatically go down, and the joy and the confidence in

your life is dramatically going.

To go up.

I have talked to tens of thousands of people, counseled

them personally over thirty five years of ministry. I'm going

to give you a little heart tart counseling bill, and

you don't even have to pay me for this. Okay,

So you might want to take this, write this down

if you would like to be fear free. Here's what

you do. It's not my opinion, it's what God says

in the Bible. Okay, let's look at it. Number one,

here's the first step. Surrender my life complete to God.

Every day.

Surrender my life completely to God. Every day I say God,

I'm full of fear. I'm giving you the good, the bad,

and the ugly of my life to you right now,

and you just start the day that way. This is

how Mary overcame her inadequacy when the Angel unloaded all

this stuff.

You're going to be pregnant. You're not even married.

And you've never had sex, and it's going to be

the son of God, and you're going to raise that

child and all the stuff that's going to happen to him.

Mary overcame her fear of inadequacy with this statement.

Luke, Chapter one, verse thirty eight.

Mary responded, I am the Lord's servant, and I'm willing

to accept whatever God wants for my life. I surrender

my life completely to God every day. I am the Lord.

My creator made me. My creator knows what's best for me.

My creator probably knows what will make me happy more

than I do, because he's my creator. And so I'm

the Lord's servants. I'm willing to do whatever the God

wants to do with my life.

Have you ever said that to God?

Such a great message by Rick today and every day.

I sure hope you were just as encouraged as I was.

And now here's Rick with a special message.

Hi, everybody, this is Pastor Rick. I would like to

thank you. Thank you for being a part of our

daily hope family. I don't get to say that often enough,

but your generosity is helping us share the hope of

Jesus with people here at home and literally all around

the world, even in places where it's difficult and even

dangerous to get the good news. You know, I recently

heard from a woman named Eunice in Cameroon. Cameroon is

a country in Central Africa, and she wrote to me.

She said, Pastor Rick, I lost both of my son,

both my son and my daughter in the war, and

now I'm raising four grandchildren on my own.

I was overwhelmed with grief.

But then she says, but through the daily hope devotionals,

I have found strength and comfort and peace in God's word.

So thank you for helping me hold on to hope. Wow,

that's powerful. That's powerful, and that happened because your giving

is helping Eunus find the strength to carry on, to

raise her grandchildren and to keep trusting God even through

the deep loss of her kids. Now, right now, I

wanted to tell you about this because we have a

special opportunity. They're some generous friends who have offered a

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you give today will go twice as far to reach

even more people with God's So can I ask you favor?

I want to encourage you and give your best gift

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So help us out. Let me just close by saying

I love you, I do, I love you, I thank

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God bless you.

This matching grant is only available until midnight on December

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