Christmas Eve 2025

Merry Christmas. Wow, you know, how many years

have you sat in services like this somewhere on the planet and

heard those old songs? And they never lose their

impact, do they? Their their history written in

lyrics and music that we can sing and reminisce and think

about it from the time we were probably smallest and youngest

to the time that we are at right now in our age process.

And it's interesting how you have different emotions at

Christmas time based on how long you've been around and what

you've been through in this life thus far.

If you're a little kid, everything is super exciting and

positive and wonderful and magical, and it should be that

way. I'd love to be able to go back

to those days again, just for a little while.

But I love watching children and grandchildren and you guys, your

kids, everybody experience Christmas to the the fullest way

that they possibly can. And then we have people that are

in times of trials and difficulty transition, whether

it's issues of losing a loved one, We have some of our

families in our church this year who lost precious loved ones

that are with Jesus now. And that's hard to have your

first Christmas, isn't it without your your mom or your

dad or your grandparents or your kids or whatever people who have

passed on. It's, it's just not quite the

same. People have health issues.

Many people have health issues, people have marital issues, they

have kids issues, they have financial issues, they have all

kind of issues, right? If you have a chance to talk to

people with with an open heart and they know you're open and

you're interested in their lives and what they maybe you're

dealing with, they'll usually tell you a little bit about what

they're dealing with. And Cindy, this week, my wife,

she's dealing with a lot of health issues at one time.

It's like, it's almost like a domino thing in our home right

now. But the Lord is with us.

Help us get through with it. The visiting nurse was there

this week and she was talking to Cindy and Cindy could tell that

she was really burdened about something, but she wasn't going

to, you know, violate her privacy sense of privacy.

But the Holy Spirit was put on Cindy to ask her, you know, what

she was dealing with And she said she was going through a

terrible divorce, very, very painful woman, about 28 years

old, eight-year old child son didn't know how to process that

with him at this time of year. And so Cindy listened to her

and, and, and meanwhile, Cindy is like an agony.

I, I could tell you more about that, but I'm not going to bore

you with the details. This pray for her.

But Cindy had the heart to say, well, could I say a prayer for

you? And so she did.

And that's really what Christmas is about.

It's about us somehow becoming a little bit more like Jesus,

where we care about others more than we think about ourselves.

Jesus, when we study his life, he was 100% focused on you,

never himself. And even as Christians, on our

best day, it's really hard to be 100% focus on someone else,

isn't it? When you have your own

challenges, your own issues. But when the Holy Spirit comes

into our life, when we become believers and we trust in Jesus

as our Lord and Savior, which I trust all of you have done.

And if you haven't, the greatest Christmas present you could ever

experience is to have Christ come into your heart and reveal

His love for you and His forgiveness to you and give you

the promise of everlasting life. That's the best.

Doesn't get any better than that.

Jesus is the reason of the season, isn't it?

Isn't he? And everything else is some

somewhat superficial to some extent.

So I want to read some history here tonight.

Some of you are familiar with this, maybe some of you have

never heard these verses from the book of Luke, but it talks

about the virgin birth, Christ being born through a Virgin Mary

and no sex, no man involved, just a miraculous birth God

becoming man in the person of Jesus Christ, fully God and

fully man. And one of the things I was

thinking about is I was reading this and maybe you thought about

it. When Jesus is a baby, he's, he's

fully God, right? Was he aware?

OK, temporarily, I'm a baby right now.

When I'm 33 years from now, I'm going to be a full man and I'm

going to die on the cross. This is why I've come to save my

people from their sin. Be fascinating to to know all

those details. Someday.

I think we will when we're with him in heaven.

But he never left his Godhead, even when he was an infant, when

he was a baby. And we know he was age 12 in the

synagogue and he was doing deep conversations theologically with

the the religious leaders at the time.

And his mom and dad were freaking out because they

wondered where he was at. And he said, don't you know him

about my father's business? So we know even at age 12, he

was fully aware of the purpose for why he came.

But it says in verse 26 of Luke chapter 1.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

Now in the sixth month, the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to

a city Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man

whose name was Joseph of the House of David.

The virgin's name was Mary. And having come in, the Angel

said to her, Rejoice highly favored one, the Lord is with

you, Blessed are you among women.

But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and

considered what manner of greeting this was.

Then the Angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you

have found favor with God, and behold, you will conceive in

your womb, and bring forth the Son, and shall call his name

Jesus. He will be great, and he will be

called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God will give him

the throne of his Father David, and he will reign over the House

of Jacob Forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.

Then Mary said to the Angel, How can this be, since I do not know

a man? And the Angel answered and said

to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of

the Highest will over shadow you.

Therefore also that holy One who is He be born will be called the

Son of God. And so a miracle, obviously.

And then it goes on to tell us in chapter 2 of Luke.

And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from

Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

This census first took place while Carinius 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 to the city of David,

which is called Bethlehem because he was the of the house

and lineage of David to be registered with Mary and be 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 his, her first

born son and wrapped him in Swahili clothes and laid him in

a Manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

And now in the Christmas letter we sent out to everybody, we had

a insight in the fact that Jesus first experienced when he was

born was his vision being focused on pretty much his

mother's face, I'm sure. But also all he saw was

blackness, The Cave, the darkness of The Cave.

It wasn't any fancy hotel or residence or anything.

It was, it was a pretty tough place where animals hung out and

he would smell for the first time and he wouldn't smell

cookies baking in the oven or wonderful sense of dinner being

made or whatever. He was smelling the animal,

animal dung, which I'm sure was really gross, but nonetheless,

that's what he experienced. And he was not laying in a

comfortable bed or a crib or a bassinet.

He was laid in a bed of hay, which was prickly and I'm sure

jagging him and all that kind of stuff.

It wasn't like, like what we experience when we go to bed at

night, right? And so when you think about

everything like the trees, it's so fun and festive and the

presents are fun and the dinner and the party and the family and

all these things are awesome to experience, right?

But think about it. When Jesus was born, there was

nothing like this, nothing at all.

And we study the Bible and we don't see any evidence of any

kind of major celebration in December or any month in regard

to his birth. The focus was on his

resurrection and and Easter Pasca.

Whenever Christ after he died on the cross for your sins, he was

buried on the third day he rose again from the dead.

That is what we really celebrate.

Christ's birth is awesome because if he wasn't born then

there would be no death, burial, and resurrection.

But his focus was not on his birthday.

His focus was on his resurrection day.

And that's what makes our faith and our Christian heritage

different than every other religion in the world.

We worship King Jesus, a risen savior.

We worship not a man, but a God. Man fully, man fully, God

perfect, never sin, Jesus Christ our Lord.

And so the glory of what happened that night was after

this occurred, and this birth occurred in the Manger.

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in

the fields, keeping watch over the flock by night.

Now to be a shepherd was a lowly occupation.

There was nothing glamorous about it.

It was cold, it was desolate. You were responsible for

protecting these animals. Many of them would be used as

sacrifices in the temple on behalf of the people's sins that

didn't realize that Jesus was the only one that could take

away sin. Animal sacrifices were still

occurring, but these guys are out there at night, I'm sure,

looking at the stars and doing whatever they do.

And all of a sudden they had this encounter, this miraculous

experience. At night as they were watching

the sheep, a behold, an Angel of the Lord stood before them, and

the glory of the Lord shone around them.

And they were greatly afraid, I should say, so I'd be afraid

too, wouldn't you? Then the Angel said to them, do

not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great

joy, which will be to all people.

Now this is the good news. You and I have good news to tell

people about what Jesus Christ did for us and what He can do

for them if they humble themselves and repent and admit

they're sinners and that they need a Savior.

It's that simple. It's good news.

Not any is a good news for the fact that He is a risen Savior,

but it's good news because He takes away all your sin, His

blood cleanses it, and He gives you a brand new life and a

future that will be with him for all eternity in heaven one day.

This is something we want to tell everybody, everybody we

know, everybody we love, everybody we come in contact

with. We want to know if they have

ever heard any good news. There's so much bad news now,

isn't there? I mean, people get paid millions

of dollars to give you and me bad news on the major news

networks, right? I mean, it's, it's madding,

people being killed, shot, terrible things happening.

I mean, we don't need any of that stuff, right?

We need good news, right? And that's why it tells us some

Philippians sync on these things, not negative things,

sync on things that are pure, lovely, just and a good report.

You have a good report, don't you?

Jesus Christ is your Lord and your Savior and he forgave you

of your sin. Tell everybody you have a chance

what he's done for you. And so he's telling them, I'm

giving you good news here. For there is born to you this

day in the city of David a savior, not a baby.

He said a savior. I'm sure they thought like, what

does that mean? Who is Christ the Lord?

He named him. The Angel named him,

specifically Christ the Lord. And this will be assigned to

you. Go and you'll find a babe

wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a Manger.

And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the

heavenly host, praising God, saying, Glory to God in the

highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men.

So it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven,

that the shepherd said to one another, Let us now go to

Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass which the

Lord has made known to us. And they came with haste, they

ran, they went as fast as they could to get there, and they

found Mary and Joseph and the Babe lying in a Manger.

Now when they had seen him, they made widely known the saying

which was told them concerning this child.

And all those who heard it marveled at those things which

were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things

and pondered them in her heart. And then the shepherds returned,

glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had

heard and seen and was told to them.

Now I wonder about me and you. Tonight we've heard the story

every year of our life. If we've been Christians and

attending a Bible church, we know the Bible ourselves because

we've read it and we've studied it.

Are we making widely known that which was told them concerning

this child? Not a guilt trip, but an

opportunity maybe for all of us today and tonight, whoever we're

with, to tell people that don't know Jesus yet what he who he is

and what he's done for us and making it widely known.

I love the parable, the sewer or the picture of the artwork.

One of my favorite paintings, I have it by my bed and it's a

picture of Jesus with a smile on his face with a satchel over his

shoulder taking seed, which is representing the word of God.

And he doesn't take well. Like I think I'll put one seed

here in Greensburg. I'll put 3IN Latrobe, I'll put

five in there. Like he just took it and like

blitzed the ground with it. I mean, the ground was totally

covered with that seed. So much seed that Jesus threw

out to teach us that you don't throw it out in a sparse way.

You throw it out as aggressively as you can, wherever you can

throw it so that people have a chance to hear what Jesus has

done for you. Our country, our world is

fractured because there's a lack of seed being sown.

People don't have hope. They don't know what to believe

in. They don't know where to go

anymore. They're hopeless.

He's the God of all hope and the God of all comfort.

And so it's exciting for me, and I'm sure to you tonight as you

hear His word and you think about it.

Lord, I want my kids to know you.

I want my grandkids in there. I want my neighbors to know you.

I want the people I work with to know You.

Show me how to share the Word. Show me how to sow the seed.

Show me how to love people enough that I really, really

want to tell them what it's all about.

Don't let me be insecure or intimidated.

We're embarrassed. Help me care about people the

way you do. Everywhere Jesus went, He told

people who he was and the people that followed him the closest.

Learn how to do the same thing. Tell everyone what the Lord has

done for you because I think of the times that we're living in

right now. If everybody had a chance to

have open mic tonight, not karaoke, but open mic where we

could just tell everybody like, what are you dealing with?

What have you been through? What is it you need help with?

And what's your greatest prayer right now?

We would be here probably till tomorrow morning.

I'm sure there'll be that much information come on forth.

But when you think about your life and Cindy and I, we try to

pray in the morning as often as we can.

And usually the prayer in the morning is repentance.

Starting with repentance. Honey, I'm sorry how I treated

you. I'm sorry, Sorry how I didn't

have patience with you. I'm sorry how I criticize you.

I I'm, I'm sorry. You know, this is always Cindy

repenting, not me. I don't have to No, I'm just

kidding. It goes both ways.

But anyway, we, we start with that, right, So that our, our

hearts are pure and there's nothing against each other,

right. And then we reflect on the

goodness of God and how merciful and how patient he's been with

us and how the, the privilege we have to serve you guys at

Calvary Chapel and teach the word of God.

There's there's no greater calling as far as I'm concerned

as a man to have the chance to teach people the word of God.

And we have many men and women in this church and teach others

the word of God. And then we have intercession

and we pray for you guys as I know you pray for us and we can

see your faces and we know the story.

And Pastor Lewis and myself and George and John, we, we know the

heartache in the church. We know the people what they're

going through. And you guys are on our hearts

all the time because you're on Jesus heart all the time.

And we represent him and we carry you in our hearts and lift

you up to the Lord. And then we have a time of

gratitude, thanking God so much for all that he's done, more

than we deserve. And one of our biggest prayers

right now, we're asking Jesus to make us more like Jesus, just

not have knowledge in our head or information.

But how can we shine Jesus to other people?

As I said, there's heartache in the world, there's illness,

there's conflicts, family issues, children issues, aging

issues, loss of loved ones, marriage, finances, sin,

culture, the nation's everything.

We are in these last days and we're to look up for.

Our redemption draws nigh. I was a Giant Eagle this

afternoon for the fifth time in two days, I think.

I get there and I text Cindy, is there any you need?

No, we're good. You know, I'm thinking on I

don't believe it, but I come home, I'm out again today.

She's oh, we need baked beans. I got to get the baked beans

right? And these lines are like huge,

right? And I'm thinking like, come on,

why am I here? And I was tempted to cut in the

line and think of myself right, but I waited.

So I'm in line. This nice young fella is behind

me and we just started striking up a conversation.

He had quesadillas. His mom was making quesadillas

for, for a Christmas dinner. I thought the point.

That's interesting. That's a change.

So we were talking and, and then he began to tell me he had gone

to Hemfield for a while. And then he went to prep school

and he he went to prestigious education school.

He's studying economics. And I asked him what he wanted

to do and he said he wanted to get into real estate development

and all that. And I said, yeah, he says, what

industry are you in? I said, well, I I sell

eyeglasses to people from Spain. And I said, I'm also a pastor.

I always like to get that in there because that's what I

really want to talk about. He says, where are you a pastor

at? And I told him, he says, yeah,

we go to church. My parents are very spiritual

and we go to a very, very small church.

Not a whole lot of people there. I said, well, it's not a matter

of how many people that go to the church, it's whether they're

going to the church for the right reason, right.

And I said, it sounds like you have a very, very nice church.

And then he said, you know, he said, I've been thinking maybe

I'd like to be a pastor. And I said, boy, that's a

wonderful idea if that's what you sense God calling you do to

do. And I encourage him to pursue

that, right, because I said it will far fulfill you so much

more than any worldly success you'll get.

It's, it's good to have a career, It's good to be

successful, all that kind of stuff.

But it's it, it, it has a, a bottom there, there.

It's not limitless where you serve Jesus and you live for

him. There's no limit to the blessing

and the benefits you have when you have a chance to, to serve

and represent him. So we, we wish each other a

Merry Christmas. He, he went on his way and I

think as I, as I saw him there and had the chance to have that

providential meeting with him in regard to ministry calling, I

think like every second of our life, if we're tuned into the

Spirit of God, there's a reason and there's a purpose for

whatever you're going through and whatever you're

experiencing. There's no mistakes.

Everything that happens, good, bad, ugly, God's using it to, as

George said to me earlier tonight, to grind us down.

So we have no confidence in anything or anybody but Jesus

that we're nothing but a a pile of dust and there's not a lot

that holds us up or stabilizes us except for him.

Jesus, you may be here tonight and you've come to the service

because someone's dragged you here relative or something.

You might be here tonight because it's traditional.

You might be here tonight. That's because you love Jesus.

And that's, but I pray the real reason you're here tonight.

But you might feel overwhelmed tonight.

You might be stressed out. You might be fearing some things

in your life. You might have some anxieties

and you might be hopeless. Well, our prayer tonight for

those who are listening on Grace FM and those who are watching on

YouTube. And I'll see this later perhaps,

and maybe now that as you sit here and as we prepare to take

the Lord's Supper together, and we do that every time we gather

to remember really what it's all about.

And that's the Lord Jesus, knowing him, living for him,

following him, and letting him be your passion in this life.

There's an answer to life for the problems we all have.

Cindy and I were talking about that this morning.

Jesus tells us in Matthew that he says come unto me, all you

that labor and are heavy laden. That means like just a ton of

stuff on you. You're overwhelmed.

You just can't take it another day.

You're just like done right. And Jesus says, come unto me and

take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is

light. He says right, and you're maybe

carrying a burden tonight and you're thinking there's no way

this is light and there's no way it is easy and He knows that.

But if you take whatever it is that's weighing you down and do

what He says, learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart, and

you will find rest for your soul.

It's all in Jesus, telling Him what it is you're struggling

with, telling Him what it is you can't handle, and telling Him

and asking Him to help you learn his life and how to trust Him

and how to follow Him. Once you tap into that, you'll

never need another self help book.

You'll never need another psychiatrist.

You'll never need another counselor.

Because He is the mighty counselor, He's the answer to

life and Jesus gift to you. This Christmas ISM is himself

and I think for a moment, God bless you.

What if he hadn't come? Where would we be tonight?

Maybe many of us would be dead in prison, sitting at an end of

a bar stool with the 30th drink, trying to get rid of our sorrows

and our worries, right? But we're here to commune with

him and the fellowship with one another.

So if you have your communion elements available there, I'm

going to read something before we take the communion because

this highlights really everything about the communion

from the book of Colossians chapter one.

It says that you may work, walk worthy of the Lord, fully

pleasing Him, being fruitful and every good work and increasing

in the knowledge of God. That's where you want to put

your focus. Strengthen with all might

according to His glorious power, not your power, but His power

for all patience and long-suffering with joy.

In spite of what Jesus went through, He always had joy,

right? And we need to experience that

joy and express that joy in the midst of all the challenges that

we all go through. Giving thanks to the Father who

has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints

in the light. He has delivered us from the

power of darkness. That's what the cross did.

When He died on the cross, He turned the light on full blast

and spoiled the powers and energy and abilities of the

devil and all the hell forces of darkness.

He delivered us from that power of darkness and conveyed us into

the Kingdom of His Son, the Son of His love, in whom we have

redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the first born over all

creation. For by Him all things were

created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and

invisible, whether they're Thrones or dominions or

principalities or powers or UFOs.

It's not in there, but they're out there, right?

All things were created through Him and for Him, and He is

before all things, and in Him all things consist.

And He is the head of the body, the Church, who is the

beginning, the first born from the dead, that in all things He

may have the preeminence for it please the Father, that in Him

all the fullness should dwell. So if you're empty and you want

to be full, it's only going to happen if you're full of Jesus,

because He is the fullness. And by Him, to reconcile all

things to himself, by him, whether things on earth or

things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his

cross. And you who were once alienated

in enemies, and that's every one of us.

At one time we hated Jesus. We lived in a way that surely

didn't show that we could care less about His cross and what He

did. I was there at one time, you

were too. And yet in the midst of us being

enemies in our mind, and by wicked works, yet He's now

reconciled, means He's made peace with us, and with Him and

the body of His flesh through His death, to present you wholly

and blameless and above reproach in His sight.

So He did it all for you and me. And it doesn't get any better

than that, does it? I could go on for an hour and

put you all to sleep. I think you probably get it by

now. And if you don't get it, Lord

have mercy on you. Listen to it later and listen to

it again and again and again until it drills into your head

and you finally say, I get it now.

This is the best thing I've ever heard of in my life.

And I want to follow Jesus and live for him and tell other

people what he's done for me and what he can do for them too,

right? Amen.

God bless you guys. The worship team can come

forward now. They're going to have one last

song before we take off. And we wish everyone a wonderful

Merry Christmas. My brother Paul here.

Come here, brother. Give me a hug.

He just lost his mom here a couple weeks ago, and here he is

serving the Lord. He's not sitting home

complaining. He's a testimony.

My mother's here today, 92 years old.

It's a miracle she's here. We're having to throwback

Christmas down on our one. All the grandkids and the

relatives and everybody's going to be at her house to

celebrating her life and celebrate each other's life.

Be thankful for who's in your life.

Your children, your grandchildren, your wives, your

husband, your grandparents, your relatives, especially the one

that you don't want to sit beside at dinner.

Maybe you intensely sit beside them this year.

You know, I've sort of had an attitude against you.

Please forgive me. I want to tell you about Jesus.

I don't want to hear about that. That's all you want to talk

about. Well, I'm going to tell you

anyway. Jesus loves you, right?

Let's prepare our hearts for the supper.

Oh, Lord, our hearts are full tonight because of you being in

them. You are the King of kings and

the Lord of Lords. Lord Jesus, we're so thankful

that you came and you went through the human experience.

Never sin, never was hopeless, never gave up.

You kept doing what you did for us, every one of us that would

believe and trust in you that our worst places.

Lord, you came to us and told us the good news through someone,

through the word, through the radio TVA person that cared

enough about us that share the good news.

And when that happened that day that we heard it and understood

it and believed our life has never been the same again and

never will be. Thanks to you Lord.

Thank you for everyone you brought here tonight, every

family that's represented. Lord bless them and their

families abundantly, Those who are listening as well.

May this be a different kind of Christmas for all of us as we

sit around and watch one another, see the joy and the

happiness. May we enter into that

celebration of life, thanking you for what it is you've given

to each of us again for another day.

Thank you for the example that all these people are to us that

serve you here, their passion, their love, and their desire to

go deeper in you, Lord, no matter what, I pray, Lord, you

would give us strength in these days and increase our faith and

make us like you, Jesus. That's what you said you wanted

to do, to conform us to your image and likeness.

We're up for that Lord. We're into that Lord 100%.

Do what it is you want to do in us to make us like you.

We don't want to stay the way we are.

We want to be more and more like you Lord, so we can bless and

help people in this life. And the night that Jesus is

betrayed, he took the bread in his hands and he broke it and he

gave thanks and he said, take, eat.

This is My body which was given for you.

Eat this in remembrance of Me. In the same manner that evening

He took the cup, and he said, This cup is a new covenant in My

blood, which was shed for the forgiveness of sins of many.

Drink this in remembrance of Me. For as often as you eat this

bread and you drink this cup, you show forth the Lord's death

until he comes again. If anybody needs any special

prayer tonight as you're leaving, especially those of you

who have been through the loss of loved ones just recently,

grab one of the leaders here. We'll pray with you and be there

no matter how long you want to be here with us.

We're not in any hurry to leave. So thanks for coming out

tonight. Love you guys.

Have a wonderful Christmas. Merry Christmas.