Christmas Carol and Nativity Message 2025

Oh wow, what a wonderful performance, kids, that has

really blessed me. Actually, growing up, I would

have turned up a bit sceptical, but actually that was brilliant.

So thank you, kids. And I think wonderful sort of

sums up what we're here to talk about tonight.

It's a phrase that gets thrown around with this season.

There's a famous Christmas song. It's the most wonderful time of

the year, a time to celebrate with joy, with love.

Maybe it means Christmas trees for you.

Maybe it's Turkey, chocolates, family, friends.

But if you're like me and you're from this country or another

Western nation, you'll likely know where Christmas comes from.

And our kids have shown it tonight in a bit of an

alternative style. But it's about this baby, Baby

Jesus. I don't know where.

Oh, he's, he's over there as wonderfully presented.

And it's about Jesus. But if you want to be really

cynical, if you come in to a church for the first time, you

might say, now I'm not going to complain because Christmas comes

with a lot of good things for me.

I get presents, I get food. But what relevance does a tiny

baby born over 2000 years ago in the Middle East have to me?

Why should I care at all? And that's an attitude now that

is becoming more prevalent. Christmas is becoming more about

Santa and trees and chocolates and it's nice, but that's not

all there is to it. Now, it was referenced in the

play that actually this is the most famous person ever.

But I had written down, I wonder if I said who is the most famous

baby ever to be born, the most anticipated child to be born.

I wonder who you'd say. I was trying to think of a

different example to Jesus. And I think the most famous

example in the world is probably when the royal family in this

country have children. Prince William and his wife Kate

have had three children now. And every time you see a media

store unlike anything else, camera crews, journalists, all

camped outside of a hospital, not even waiting to see the

baby, but just to hear of the news of a successful birth.

And when Kate eventually did give birth, every time it became

a headline around the entire world.

And yet this baby that the kids have shown us about tonight,

this baby Jesus was far more famous and far more important.

It's funny though because you see donkeys instead of doctors,

camels instead of cameras, and a Manger instead of a hospital

manager. Yet this is the most influential

birth the world has ever seen. See, people knew for about 6 or

seven months before Kate had a child that a royal Prince was

being born. But Jesus birth was predicted

hundreds of years before by multiple people.

And these people, they, they didn't keep it a secret.

They didn't decide, oh, we'll do a, we'll do a news reveal a bit

closer to the time they wrote it down, some over 700 years before

Jesus was born. I mean, that's crazy.

The only possible way to get that is if God was to reveal it

to them. You might say, well, Isaac, if I

told you that a baby was going to be born in 700 years, I want

you to get a name. I'd have some chance of getting

it right. I mean, a lot of people get

born, so why is it special? But these prophecies were more

than that. In Micah, we read that a ruler

will be born out of Bethlehem. And in Hosea, we we see that God

says my child out of Egypt, I call my child.

And if you look at the baby's life, as was referenced, he was

born in a Manger in Bethlehem and had to flee to Egypt for his

safety before later returning to Nazareth.

See, statistically, it's impossible for a human just to

guess that and put that all right, and especially multiple

people, and you might still be saying, well, it's a special

baby. He moved around a bit.

People guessed, why should I care?

But it comes down to why the baby was born.

Why was baby Jesus born? There's this famous phrase in

the world now. I was born to do this.

If you listen to people, especially those of high

influence, they might say I was born to play football, I was

born to sing, I was born to drive.

I was born to do all this. I was born to solve this

problem. I wonder what you would say your

purpose is. And I think for Jesus, I can sum

it up. I was trying to think of a, of a

way to sum it up. And as I was praying, getting

ready for tonight, I had this phrase come to me, this sort of

James Bond esque phrase. Jesus was born to die.

You really did hear that Born and die don't sound like they

should go in the same sentence. You know, 1 is the start of life

and one is the end of life. But that is Jesus story.

And it might seem weird that at Christmas I'm talking about

Jesus dying. But actually for us to

understand really we have to go into this because it comes from

His purpose that see, purpose makes this world go round.

Most of what you do and what you have in your life is driven by

purpose, whether it's good or bad.

See, I could ask how you turned up today, and a lot of people

will say they drove. So I could say, why do you have

a car? Well, actually, the purpose of a

car is to get you places. Why do you watch that TV show

when you go home tonight? Why are you going to put that on

the TV? Or because you find it

entertaining? See, purpose drives everything,

and without a purpose then things tend not to matter.

And there's a reason why God revealed information about Jesus

and his birth, and it's because of what he came to do, His

purpose for arriving. Now again, at this point, as I

talk about Jesus being born to die, you might say, well that's

me as well. Everybody dies.

But see, as we talk about Jesus's death, it's different to

the death that you and I will face.

I was reminded of this yesterday.

I spoke to somebody at work and he's turned up and he'd been off

earlier in the week because he was at a funeral.

And I was asking how was it? How had he found it?

Had it gone OK? And he told me the last thing he

said before we said our buys and he went off was, it's the only

thing we're guaranteed. But this is where Jesus is deaf

differs. I mentioned before that Jesus

death was at birth was predicted way in advance.

So I want to turn to scripture, but not just to see about where

his birth was predicted, but to see about what else was

foretold. There's a very famous bit of

scripture. She turned to Isaiah 53.

I'm sorry that I don't have it on the screen tonight.

But verse 2 says he grew up before Him like a tender shoe

and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in

his appearance that we should desire in Him.

See, that is Jesus. He grew up nothing special,

nothing amazing that would make you go, oh, this is a king of

kings. This is somebody that's going to

rule the world. He was born in a Manger.

He was a carpet and a son, not rich.

No particular beauty that made Him stand out as a special

somebody. And as you read the next verses,

you see He was despised and rejected by mankind.

A man of suffering and familiar with pain, like one from whom

people hide their faces. He was despised and we held Him

in low esteem. See, He was so lowly despised.

Before one of his disciples got to know Him and meet Him, He

wrote Him off completely because of where he was from.

After his parents returned to Israel, they went to this place

called Nazareth and that's where he grew up.

And in John one we hear about Nathaniel who goes on to become

one of Jesus disciples. But the first thing he says

about Jesus is Nazareth. Can anything good come from

there? This is someone written off,

rejected completely. Maybe you relate to that today.

But Jesus still continued to walk out in the way that he was

called to. He continued to do what he did

and people started to realise that he was in fact the Saviour

of earth, the Son of God, the Messiah himself.

This is who the Jewish people had been waiting hundreds of

years for. They were anticipating somebody

to come, but he turned out to be far more than what they

realised. As Jesus lived, he frustrated

people. The elites and those who loved

their power became scared as people started to follow and

listen to Jesus. See, he quickly went from a baby

up into being a teacher. He got called rabbi a lot and as

he taught, people listened and people followed.

And so those in the elite got scared.

They said we need to stop this. We need to kill him now.

What they thought they were doing at this moment in time was

stopping Jesus, putting an end to what he was doing.

But this is exactly what is foretold about Jesus life.

Jesus was born to die, but not just to die himself.

Jesus died for me and for you. Now I'm going to pause for a

second and I go right back to the start.

And when I say right back to the start, I mean it.

See in Genesis one we read about creation and we see how God

ended ends up making humans and he makes them in his image with

the whole purpose to have relationship and bring glory to

God. But in the Garden of Eden, Adam

and Eve were tempted and sin entered the earth and took hold

of their lives. That if you're from this country

especially, you might have heard of this word sin.

But before I carry on, I want to clear up what I'm talking about

when I say sin. See, sin just means disobedience

of what God has said. It's disobeying what they were

told to do. So in the garden that was do not

eat from a tree, and they ate from a tree.

And so sin entered. Now the thing about sin and why

it comes up so much in Christian circles is because sin separates

us from God. Sin is impurity and God is

perfect. And so sin cannot be in the

presence of God. And So what you see is Adam and

Eve have to leave the Garden of Eden where they've been well

provided and looked after. But this wasn't God's intention.

So God gave grace. He said, oh, do this, follow

these and you'll be closer to me.

But in our flesh and our frailty, humanity always failed.

Jesus had gave instructions. 10 commandments do not lie, do not

steal. But they kept being broken and

broken. The Jewish nation who God had

made in his image and called everybody to be, was still

missing the mark. So God realised he needed a

rescue plan. And this is where Christmas

becomes relevant. This is where the baby Jesus

we've heard about tonight becomes special.

See, if you die without your sin being atoned for, we will be

eternally separated from God. Romans 623 says for the wages of

sin is death. And this isn't talking about the

death we talk about on this earth when someone gets on old,

but lifelong separation from the source of life.

And so God himself came to deal with sin to serve as a Saviour.

This baby was born with a very purpose, to die.

See, Jesus came and lived for 33 years perfectly, never sinning,

doing what we as humans could never do, meeting God's perfect

standard. And in that time he went around

transforming lives, healing people, teaching, but everything

was preparation for him to die. He experienced every human

emotion, hunger, sadness, anger, Lovejoy, grief, anything you can

name Jesus went through. And I realised that as I talk,

there's a sombre tone ringing around the room, especially at

Christmas. But this is good news.

See, when Jesus was crucified, he took all of humanity's sin,

past, present and future, and took it on himself.

Isaiah 53, which I mentioned before, continues to say, surely

He took up our pain and bore our suffering, Yet we considered Him

punished by God, stricken by Him, and afflicted.

But He was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

This is 700 years before Jesus ever hung on a cross.

Jesus died from my faults, for your faults, for my sin, for

your sin, for everybody's sin. But that's not the end of the

story. See His body was buried, but

three days later he rose again, and when he came out that grave

he left. My sin, my shame, your sin, your

shame, and death was defeated. It was left in the grave.

Isaiah 53 five finishes with the punishment that brought us peace

was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

It sounds crazy because God took our punishment.

We were healed. And This is why we celebrate at

Christmas because it was the beginning of the rescue plan.

If you're familiar with Star Wars, the fourth film or the

first depending on how old you are, is known as A New Hope.

But victory wasn't secured in that film, but it was the start

of the journey to the victory and that is what Christmas is.

The world celebrates because God's supreme rescue plan was

put into action as Jesus was born.

He was born on earth and what he came to do was began.

And see, this is the good news because it gives us an

opportunity to have a certain hope that we know that when we

die, we know what where we can go.

It's not in what we have done, but what Jesus did on that

cross. See I stated before sin

separates us from God and Romans 323 three chapters earlier than

for the wages of sin is death. It says for all have sinned all

so we're all guilty and that means you and I without Jesus

when we die. If you walk out tonight and you

end up in a car crash and you do not know Jesus that one that

you're going to stand face to face and you're going to be

eternally separated from him. The source of life itself is

gone. So every good thing you

experience on this earth will be gone, but Jesus, God himself

came as the solution to that. The most famous Bible verse in

the whole world is John 316. It says for God so loved the

world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes

shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

See, God sent his Son baby Jesus, that if you believe that

he died and rose again and you repent, that you shall not

perish, but you'll be able to live in his presence forever.

See what happens is there's this thing called the great exchange.

We get our sin, our shame, our mock, our dirt dealt with, and

we get Jesus's righteousness in return.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we

might become the righteousness of God.

That's 2 Corinthians 521 And see, this is the very purpose,

right from when the kings came to bring gifts, the shepherds

decided to go and visit as well. That was the purpose why Jesus

was born. He was born to die.

But when I say that there's a greater truth than born to die,

Jesus was born to save, to save the world, to save me, to save

you. And this wasn't just some sort

of lame idea that God came up with as things were going wrong,

but from the very moment sin enters the earth, you can see

this plan be formed even before sacrifices.

You read about Leviticus and laws In Genesis 315, God

addresses Satan the devil, or as he's called in Genesis 315, the

serpent who deceives and leads people into sin.

And God says to him, he will crush your head and you will

strike his heel. Now the best thing to do to

understand this truly is to read it backwards.

You will strike his heel. See, as Jesus died, Satan lands

a blow on God, or so he fought. See that death was the most

painful death ever experienced. But what came through it is

Jesus crushed death. The head of the serpent was

crushed and victory was sealed. Death was defeated.

The whole reason why death is feared in the world is because

it's unknown or some people don't know what's going to

happen, and there's this fear of what comes after, especially in

the context of being separated from God for all eternity.

But as you read 1 Corinthians 15 verses 54 to 57, it says when

1 Corinthians 15:54–57

the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the

mortal with immortality. Now I'm going to pause halfway

through here. This is what happens when you

accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour.

When you realise that Christ died on a cross for you and your

sin, you get clothed with the imperishable.

Your mortality becomes immortality and the verse

continues saying then the saying that is written will come true.

Death has been swallowed up in victory.

Where O death is your sting? Where O death is your victory?

The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is law.

But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lords

Jesus Christ. See, if you believe that Jesus

died for you, you get Jesus's righteousness, it gets put on

you, death is defeated. That is no longer gone because

when you die, you'll be recognised as Jesus is.

And that means when you stand face to face with God, you'll be

welcomed into the Kingdom of heaven.

And this is the good news. This is why we celebrate at

Christmas a random baby being born.

Well known is not any random baby.

It was the saviour of the world. See.

Why we celebrate at Jesus Santa, food, trees, drinks, these are

good things, but it all comes seconds to Jesus.

See, Jesus is the reason for the season.

And just to give you a picture of what heaven will look like

for those who know Jesus, John, a disciple of Jesus got a vision

and this is in the Book of Revelation.

And he writes, and I heard a loud voice from the throne

saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God

himself will be with them as their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

There shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor

crying nor pain anymore for the former things that passed away.

And he who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making

all things new. And it also, he said, write this

down, for these words are trustworthy and true.

Maybe you've never heard this before.

Maybe you didn't know that if you were to die, your sin would

separate you from God. Maybe you've never heard that.

Maybe as I talk about what John saw about heaven, you're like, I

want that. I long for a place where there

is no more tears, there is no more pain.

And so I'm here simply as a sign, poets, to point to that

baby, to that Saviour, to say Jesus is the way.

See, Christmas is about celebrating his arrival who came

to die for you so you can live with him.

So I'm going to pray. If you'd like to accept what

Jesus did for you, you can just repeat in your head after me.

I encourage you afterwards. Come and tell me.

Come and tell Ben somebody that who invited you.

Tell them that you prayed this prayer.

If you do, and it's not about what you can do, but what has

already been done, maybe you still have questions and that's

OK. Before I mentioned the disciple

who said what good can come from Nazareth, the very reply he gets

is come and see. That's my invitation tonight.

Whether you've known Jesus for years and years, maybe you're

ready to pray. What?

I'm about to pray in a minute. And if you are, that's great.

But maybe you're not ready. But whatever stage you are in

life, my invitation tonight is come and see.

Come and see what Jesus has done for you.

So I'm going to pray and then I'm going to hand back over.

So repeat after me if you wish in your head, Yes, God, thank

you for your love for me. Thank you that you made me to

know you. Tonight I say I want to know you

more. I'm sorry for when I've gone

wrong. I'm sorry for when I've sinned,

when I've walked away from you. Jesus, please forgive me.

And Jesus, I accept that you died for me, that you taught my

punishment so that I may have your righteousness and eternal

life with you. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.

Amen. Thank you so much, Isaac.

We're going to, I'm going to invite the band back up and

we're going to end by singing Joy to the world.

And you know what, if you are a Christian, I don't know everyone

here, but if you're a Christian in this room, it is our

privilege to be able to sing, to be able to say how amazing Jesus

is. The fact that he came is the

fact that we get to live forever.

We get to be with Him forever, that we will rule and reign with

him forever and ever and ever. That when we die, when our

physical bodies die, we will be with him in heaven.

And one day we will be resurrected and live with him

for all eternity. That's why we get to sing with

such joy, because we know a God who died for us.

And my question is, if you don't know that, as Isaac said,

actually you can know him today. You can know him today.

It doesn't matter whether you're a child here or whether you're

the other end of the spectrum. You can turn and know him.

But he is well worth knowing. He is an amazing saviour and I

encourage you if you want to know more about Him, come and

speak to whoever you came with. If you came on your own, come

and speak to me or someone up here.

We'd love to talk to you more about it.

But yeah, we're going to sing Joy to the World before we have

some drinks and biscuits and stuff.