Christmas Eve 2025

Merry Christmas, everybody. You know it's a special thing to

gather during this time of year. You know that it's

customary that that we gather with family, and I want

you to know that I just consider this another gathering

of family, the family of God. You know, so many

times we think that family is blood, but family is

just as much faith as it is blood. And today

we share that spiritual heritage of our heavenly Father today

and it's just a fantastic time. I want you to

just look around and make eye contact with somebody and

just to give them a Merry Christmas nod whatever you want.

Just just Merry Christmas, Mery Christmas, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas

to everybody at home. Thank you so much for joining

us today. Hit that share button and let people know

that we're talking about Jesus UH during this uh, this

Christmas Eve time. I want to read a passage of

scripture UH in Luke chapter two. Luke chapter two, starting

in verse one, it says, and it came to pass

in those days that a decree went out from Caesar

Augustus that all the world should be registered. The census

first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria, so all

went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph

also went up from Galilee, out of the city of

Nazareth into Judea, the city of David, which is called Bethlehem,

because he was of the house and lineage of David,

to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was

with child.

So it was that while.

They were there, the days were completed for her to

be delivered, and she brought forth her firstborn son and

wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger,

because there was no room for them in the inn.

Now there were in the same country shepherds living in

the fields, living out in the fields, keeping watch over

their flock by night. Let's pray, Father, we thank you

for your word. It's the only change agent that we

have on the face of this planet. And I pray

that in the stillness of this moment, as we slow

our lives for just a few minutes, that you would

speak to us, and that it would change us at

the very fabric of our being. Lord, that your word

would shape us and mold us, that you would do

something so profound tonight that we would never be the

same again, do we ask it in Jesus' name?

Amen?

You know, we know this passage of Scripture as part

of the Christmas story, and it's a powerful story about

how our Savior came to the earth and we celebrate Christmas.

But I want to talk just for a few minutes

about before Christmas, because that's what Christmas Eve really is, right,

It's the time before Christmas. It's that it's that waiting,

if you will. Christmas Eve is the waiting. Christmas Day

is the experience. And I know that there's so many

kids here that are eagerly anticipating morning breaking tomorrow. Some

of them won't even wait till the sun comes up. Amen,

They'll be up at four o'clock in the morning and

they're going to be looking and expecting and that expectancy

that lives on the inside of them. And when we

come to this passage of Scripture, this passage of Scripture

is preceded listen by four hundred years, four hundred years

without a sound from God. For four hundred years, God

did not speak through the prophets. For four hundred years.

There was no what we consider visitation to mankind. There

was just silence, an emptiness, and then this strange choice

of God. The sound that came was it anything that

anybody expected? The sound that came that shattered that spiritual silence,

that four hundred years of spiritual silence. The sound that

came was the crying of a baby, an ordinary sound

that the world had experienced so many times over that

four hundred years.

So many times the cry of a baby.

Had stirred the hearts of parents and grandparents, and aunts

and uncles and brothers and sisters. So many times had

crying interrupted that moment of life for so many people.

But this one was different. See, Creation was groaning to

hear a sound from heaven, was waiting and anticipation of

a sound from heaven. The heavenly hosts, all of those

angels gathered in the Throne room, were waiting in anticipation

for this moment because they understand good that it was coming,

and they waited with such a great anticipation that the

moment God said go, they were already ready and in tune.

It was an eager anticipation from Creation, an eager anticipation

from the heavenly hosts. For mankind. When it happened, nobody

really took notice when the sound came to the manger,

the spiritual, the religious of the day, they thought it

was going to be something else, and they missed it entirely.

Those others, the rest of the people who weren't overly spiritual,

they just went about their day and maybe they heard

the faint cry coming from that manger, coming from that

stable that night, but they just continued in the path

of life. They continued to go and do what they

were planning on doing, because they weren't waiting.

They were just simply surviving.

But there was a sound that changed everything. You know,

throughout scripture we see God speak and things happen. We celebrate,

of course, that incredible sound, the mighty rushing wind on

the day of Pentecost. But when we get more specific,

when we get more specific to that sound of the

weeping of Jesus, that sound of the cry, that first

cry from that baby on that very first Christmas morning,

and we track that through scripture. We see Jesus cry

a couple of more times in scripture. The first time

Jesus cried was standing outside the tomb of one of

his dearest friends, Lazarus. Lazarus had been dead for three

days Jesus ordered them to roll away the stone, and

lazarus own sister said, surely not, Lord, because and this

is the I like to quote this from the King James.

She said, surely he stinketh.

Surely the course of deterioration had already.

Gotten to him.

That he wasn't what he used to be. There's no

way that he's still in the same condition that he

was in when we put him in the tomb. So

let's don't do that, because things are going to get ugly,

things are going to get bad. But then Jesus began

to weep. And when Jesus wept, he beat death with

those tears that his tears literally watered the life of

a man. And they called him forth out of that tomb,

and he lived again, and they tore the grave clothes away.

And he experienced life.

And then the week of the Passion, week that Jesus

would ultimately surrender his life for all mankind. That says

that he was moving from lazarus house to Jerusalem. And

as they talked to the hill, he could see the

old city of Jerusalem. And he stopped on the road

and he looked, and he began to weep over the

city of Jerusalem, and crying that day led to a

change of everything. That the tears he shed and the

brokenness he had for humanity would start a series of

events that would lead us to the place where you

and I would no longer interact with God the way

God had always been.

Interacted with before.

No longer was there the blood of sacrifice and animals.

No longer did we need an intermediary. No longer did

we have to go through some ceremony. But it was

just God with us, an experience that only humanity is

entitled to, an experience is unique to you and to me,

and no other part of creation has the experience of

being able to go.

Boldly before the throne room.

Of grace in our deepest times of need. Because it's

all about the sound. And the reality is is that

if we're in our time of waiting and I don't

know what you're dealing with, I don't know what you're

going through, I don't know what you're experiencing, I don't

know the heaviness that's in your life. But if you're

waiting on something, I want you to know that it

only takes a sound from Heaven. Let me say that again,

it only takes that would be a good place sayment,

even on Christmas, Eve, y'all can still save men. It

only takes a sound from Heaven to change your situation,

to change the whole course and the plight of what

you're going through.

It only takes a sound.

See, he doesn't have to orchestrate a host of angels,

he doesn't have to gather the armies.

He doesn't have to.

Do any of those things to change the plight of

your life, or to move into the situation and circumstance

that you find yourself in. It's just the sound, just

a moment where he interrupts the natural course of things.

But if we repeat the same mistakes that were repeated

on that very first Christmas, it's possible that the sound

will come and we won't hear it because we may

be so religious that we're expecting something else, We're expecting

him to work and move in a different way. Or

maybe it's because we're so selfish that we think he

has to move the way we want him to move.

Or maybe we're in the place where we just simply

say God can't do for me, or won't do for

me what he does for everybody else, I'm not entitled

to that. So I'm just going to continue in the

daily operation and busyness of life.

And although I hear.

Something faint coming from behind a door, I'm going to

continue to walk and do my own thing, because that's

what I've always done. But the reality is that if

we would reposition ourselves, if we would take a little

if we could back up and see our situation and

our circumstance through the eyes of a child, if we

could experience it from that pure sincerity, that purely innocent place,

and in our time of waiting, in the time of

our need of a miracle, what if we repositioned that

and we changed our perspective and instead of looking at

the need, we just simply called it what it was

Christmas Eve. What if we just repositioned our time of

need to that day before the that moment of waiting

before God shows up and sheds a tear and changes everything.

Because the reality is is he's not happy when you're hurting,

he's not happy when you're broken. He takes no pleasure

in those things. His heart breaks over our situation and

our circumstance, But he's not moved our situation and our circumstance.

He's not moved by it, because God is only moved

by our faith. He's moved when we understand who he

is and what he can do in a moment. He

doesn't need a day, a month, a week, he doesn't

need an hour.

He needs a moment and one sound. He needs people

who are focused and instead of.

Being so busy about getting registered to be counted, so

busy about trying to find a place to eat in

a town that's so overcrowded that actually sounds like our town. Amen,

more people than there are roads. There were more people

than there were roads back then. But if we can

look through the eyes of faith, like that child that

knows tomorrow when they wake up, that experience is going

to be there, that moment of wow where they walk

into the room and they see things that are just

a little different than they've ever seen them before, that.

Moment that captures their heart.

If we lived every day in our wanting and in

our need like it was Christmas Eve and that we

were about to walk through the door and hear the sound.

And see the sights and experience.

Gee, I want to tell you something right now, no

matter where you are, no matter what you're facing online,

no matter how desperate you are. It's Christmas Eve, and

Jesus is about to make a sound. He's about to

change everything in a moment. Are you listening? Are you living?

And anticipation, because when he shows up.

And things change, he's gonna call you from the field.

To see the miracle and go and tell everybody about it.

Everybody's staying with me all over the room. We're gonna

worship together, and then we're gonna take communion together.

If you have it, if you don't have the elements,

if you still need