Unwrapping the Profound Love of Christ This Festive Season

Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

Welcome to Madison Church Online.

My name is Steven Feath from Leet, pastor here, and I'm so glad that you're joining us.

We are online only this weekend because it's Thanksgiving weekend.

We usually take holiday weekends off from our in-person gatherings.

We do that so that you can be home with your family and friends and so that our volunteers can get a much needed break.

I hope you had a great and restful time this past few days.

Let me know in the chat room or in the comments, depending on when and where you're watching this.

Let me know what the highlight was for you this past few days, this past Thanksgiving Thursday For me.

I love getting together with my family and we got to do that.

We got to stay home for a few days.

No one had to go to work, no one had to go to school.

We weren't on vacation, we just got to stay at home and sleep in and stay up late and be lazy.

Those are always precious moments.

They don't happen often enough.

I also like eating good food with my family and then watching one of my favorite movies a true comedy, classic planes, trains and automobiles.

It's the best Thanksgiving movie out there.

I mean it might be the only one that I know of, but it is definitely one of my favorite movies.

But I'll be honest with you and this might be a little controversial, but I'm going to say it anyway my favorite part of Thanksgiving, honestly, is when it's over, I know.

Now let me explain why.

My favorite part of Thanksgiving being when it's over is because then I get to begin to celebrate Christmas publicly and openly.

To clarify I've been celebrating Christmas.

I've just haven't been doing it openly because I know that that would bother some of you very much.

I love Christmas.

Since it snowed for the first time, the Christmas music has already been playing at my house.

The holiday candles have already been lit.

We're watching Christmas movies already.

I think we're watched four of them at this point.

But again, I got to largely keep this stuff to myself before Thanksgiving, because some people get deeply, deeply bothered Maybe that's you when Thanksgiving's over.

Then I can finally open up and just say this is who I am and I love it.

The day after Thanksgiving, like many of you, we start putting up our Christmas tree, our Christmas lights.

This year I got the climb up on our roof and put Christmas lights on the house.

We bought our house about a year and a half ago, but this is the first year that we're putting up lights.

If you look at the picture and you see that it looks like I'm really concentrating, I assure you it's not on lights and it's not about clips.

I am terrified of falling off my roof.

The fear of heights was not going to get to me.

Those lights were going up and they are Now.

Part of my excitement about the season is also that all three of my kids most of you know this, but all three of my kids are born in December.

I've got to hype myself up.

It's going to take a lot of energy and money for Megan and I to get through this December and each December for about the next 18 years.

We have to hype ourselves up.

I'm wondering, similar to my first question, which is what's your highlight of the last week?

What are you most looking forward to the next three or four weeks as we enter into this season of Advent, as we lean into Christmas, as we enter into the holidays?

What's your favorite part?

What are you most looking forward to and again, share that with us.

Is it a song?

Is it a type of music, a movie memories?

For some of you, it's getting gifts.

You're very excited about that gift You're getting this year.

I know I am.

It could be a person that you don't get to see very often, but I'm curious what are you most looking forward to this holiday season?

What do you love the most?

Now, the reason for this season will be debated by some, but it does not need to be debated by us.

For followers of Jesus, the reason for this season is all about love, and, and specifically the reason for the season being about love is about God's love For you and me and every person who has ever lived.

This isn't something that I have come up with on my own to sound really kind of warm and make you feel good this Advent season.

This is something that one of Jesus's best friends, john, records himself in a Bible passage You're probably familiar with.

He says this is how God loved the world he gave his one and only son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but will have eternal life.

Now, that passage we don't normally tie in with Christmas.

That's not where our minds go, but it really does explain the why behind Christmas.

Why did Jesus come?

As we look forward to Christmas and we celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Why did he come here?

No, well, it's because of God's great love.

And because of God's great love he didn't just say I love you and wish you would have made better choices.

Because of his love he gave.

And that gift of His love, the gift of Jesus, changed the world.

Actually, it didn't just change the world, it turned the world upside down, which is what we're gonna talk about in this series, this Advent series that we're going into.

It might be a surprise for some of you, but everything about Jesus and his kingdom was upside down by the world's Standards.

And what I mean is we live in an assa, in a society in which having more stuff is Generally a good thing.

I mean, we would say, yeah, that's great, but Jesus says no, it's actually better to give than it is to receive.

So that's what I mean when I say it's upside down.

And when Jesus turned the world upside down, what I'm talking about is how, when the world says, oh, live this way, jesus often confronted it and said there's actually a better way.

We've heard if you want to be first, then you must be last.

That wasn't a modern philosopher, that was Jesus who tells us that if we want to be first, we must be last in his kingdom.

No one on earth would.

No one else on earth would say that.

Jesus said something like you have to die in order to live.

And this has been confusing people for thousands of years.

It's not just you or me today.

It's been confusing people for thousands of years.

It is so embedded into what it is to be a human and to live in a society with other humans to pursue things like power and control.

No one wants to be last.

So when Jesus says, if you want to be first, be last with.

Nobody wants that.

No one wants to let go of control.

We want to determine our own destiny.

We don't want to leave it up to someone else.

We want to control that.

We want autonomy and Independence as people.

The world teaches us that all we need to move forward is to believe in ourselves and to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and that you have truly arrived, you've truly gotten to a great place when you no longer need anyone else, when you are truly self-dependent, if you could ever actually get there.

We acquire and seek out wealth and possessions above most things.

Our culture tells us that the measure of Success and we all want to be successful that the measure of success is how big your houses, or how new your houses, or how much money you have in retirement, or when you can retire, how much, how many stocks you have, the savings.

What do you make in a year?

Who has the latest gadgets, the newest car, the coolest car?

Those are the things that we pursue in this, on this earth, and as a result of us doing that, we whether we're pursuing the status or the possessions, the independence, whatever it is, no matter what we're pursuing, when we as followers of Jesus and we don't presume that everyone watching is A follower of Jesus, but if you are watching or listening in, your a follower of Jesus.

When you and I, when we give in to this kind of Stuff, these, this value system, we're contributing to the brokenness of this world.

We contribute to the brokenness of the world because we invest in a value system that is punctuated by always needing more.

You see, you're never gonna have enough influence, you'll never have enough money, you'll never have enough power or autonomy.

There will never be a finish line when we live the way that the world tells us to live.

It'll be always go, go, go, go until you can't go anymore.

We contribute to a societal order and whether you're in or out, well, I have the nice car and you don't have the nice car, and I'm the haves and you're the have-nots, and even though Jesus tells me it's better to give than it is to receive, I'm gonna contribute to the society.

We have a system in which followers and likes and perfect family photos are the measure of status and fulfillment.

And so there is a warning and I'm not trying to rebuke you for having nice things, have nice things.

But I'm saying when we Totally just go all in and we don't challenge it, we just live by it, we're contributing to the brokenness of the world.

We fall into the trap.

And maybe today, on this Sunday morning this is kind of maybe describing you.

I mean, you've been running and you've been pursuing, and maybe it was for the next Raised, the next promotion, the next thing.

But you've done that now like ten times or twenty times, or you've done that for 15 years and you realize, yeah, there is there.

You know there is no finish line here.

And now you're wondering do I just not fit in?

You've been thinking about yourself, possibly less than you really are.

Well, I just don't have enough stuff.

I just I'm not enough.

Maybe you've been thinking about giving up on God as a result.

I'm not good enough.

No one loves me how could God do this to me?

And so, if you're feeling a little off, you're feeling like though you in the world just don't jive Very well, this holiday season, perhaps perhaps it's a good thing.

Again and again and again, we see not just Jesus with the words that he says, with the way that he lives, love on people and spend time with the social outcast, the economic outcast, everybody that nobody else in society wanted to be with Jesus, spent time with and invested with and loved unconditionally.

There's another story in Luke in which Jesus is over at kind of a religious who's who, and this is story takes place in Luke 7 and while they're having dinner, a woman comes in and she begins to cry, and she cries so much that she's able to wash Jesus's feet with her tears.

I mean, foot washing is a big deal in that society.

You walked around either barefoot or with sandals, and dusty, muddy In an agricultural society, so they're probably animal feces on the road that you're stepping in it.

So when you walk into someone's house, you would have, you'd wash your feet.

You'd get your feet washed by a servant in this story that Jesus hadn't had his feet washed and the woman comes in and Washes his feet with her tears and then she dries them With her own hair and she has a very expensive bottle of perfume with her and she uses that for Jesus's feats so they smell good.

And the religious leaders in the room who are kind of thinking that Jesus might be a threat, they don't like them.

They begin to think to themselves if he really is a Prophet, he would know who this woman was.

I mean, if Jesus really was the Messiah, he certainly wouldn't let this woman, this prostitute, wash his feet and touch him.

But Jesus does.

Jesus actually knows their thoughts, he knows their hearts and he confronts them and he tells the woman that her faith has saved her from her sins.

You see, this woman comes to Jesus on the outskirts of everything.

She's just as big of a social outcast as she as anyone could have been in that society.

See, women weren't Equals with men in that society.

But this woman was less than the other women because she was the kind that they buy and sell.

And Jesus sees her and loves her and even though she didn't have anything to bring to Jesus except her tears, the hair on her head, jesus accepted that she gave him everything.

She gave him her best, and Jesus saw that and Loved her and forgave her and moved, move her to a better place.

See, jesus often loved the unimpressive, the messy and the outsider, and before you and I begin to think of the outsider as someone else I want us to begin to look at ourselves and what does it mean for us in our own lives that Jesus loves us as we are?

We have all felt like the least at some point in our lives.

We've all felt like the least at some point in our lives as part of being human, and it's part of being human in a broken World.

And that's why Christmas Christmas is such good news for us today, because when we feel like we're the least, when we feel like we're at the lowest and when we feel like we're at our most Unlovable, the Jesus, who came to turn the world upside down, draws near to us.

And if there's one thing I could encourage you with this advent season is that you are loved.

It's not because of anything you have done or anything you haven't done, so because of something you've said, something you haven't said, it's all because of who God is and God loves you and that, maybe, where you're at this advent series, you just needed to hear that God loves you and I pray, and I pray as we talk.

I pray, as this message is is posted, that the love of God shoots through the video, shoots through your speakers, and that you begin to experience the love of God and new and Fresh ways, because God does love you.

And if you've never responded to God's love, then make this moment the moment that you do respond to his love.

Now, for others of us, we know God loves us, where that's firm in our foundation.

We're reminded.

That's good that we're reminded, but for some of us who are more familiar with it, it's time that we show God's love to other people.

We're familiar with the greatest commandment you know love God and love people.

When the religious leaders come and they try to trip Jesus up and they said what is the most important commandment, he says love God another, love other people, just like God.

It's the one that we talk around, talk about a lot.

But there's another passage, and this one's in John 13, 34, about how we are to love other people.

And Jesus says just as I have loved you, you should love each other.

Just as I have loved you, you should love one another.

How should I love my neighbor?

Jesus says just as I have loved them.

How should I love my spouse, jesus, just as I have loved them.

How should I love my enemies?

The person who cut me off, the boss who's trying to sabotage my career, the co-worker who's lazy and always leaves me with all of the work to do?

Jesus, how should I love them?

And Jesus doesn't say treat them like you want to be treated.

Jesus has treat them how I have treated them.

And so then, the question for us this holiday season, this advent season, how can we love others as Jesus has loved them?

What does love require of us these next few weeks?

Who can we share God's love with?

Who in your world is treated like the least?

Who in your world feels like the least?

How can you share the love that Jesus has for them this holiday season?

Perhaps it's somebody in your neighborhood whose political signs were completely different than your political signs, and reaching out to them would require you prioritizing your faith over your politics.

Or do you have a friend who's going through a difficult time, and getting involved, jumping into the situation with them, would be very time consuming and draining, I get that, but maybe that's how God wants you to show them his love this holiday season, perhaps as the parent, a sibling or child who has hurt you, and you're going to extend them not just the love but the forgiveness that Jesus has given you.

How is God calling you, how is he calling us as a community, to share his love this Christmas?

The Christmas story is all about the incarnation, god becoming man, about a God who loved us so much that he came to earth to be with us.

Matthew 1, 23 describes it this way look, the virgin will conceive a child.

She will give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us, and at Christmas we celebrate Emmanuel, we celebrate God with us.

It's the most radical and upside down love story that the world has ever known.

As fully God and as fully human.

Jesus had everything any of us could possibly imagine and want, and so much more.

Jesus had infinite power and control.

Jesus had perfect autonomy and independence.

Jesus had unending wealth and possessions.

He had limitless status and influence, and yet Jesus chose to give all of that up to love on the least, first as a baby born in poverty in a manger, and later as a criminal crucified on a cross.

Jesus gave up everything to love everyone.

He became the least to love the least, and he continues to love the least today.

That's what Christmas really is.

Christmas is the ultimate act of love for each of us, and this Christmas, I hope you will let the love of our Savior turn your world upside down.