Christmas - God Pitched His Tent

Let's lift our Bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad in the devil bad.

Thank you.

Worship teams, beautiful job.

Let's say this together and say Heavenly Father, I'm so glad for Jesus, I'm so glad to be here today to celebrate Jesus.

He's the reason for the season, he's the reason that I live.

I've given my life to him, I've committed to him, and one of the meanings of the word commit is to put myself in prison.

I've locked myself up with Jesus and I give him all the glory in Jesus' name.

Amen, you could be seated.

Praise God.

Let's look at John, chapter one, the gospel of John.

Praise the Lord, verse one.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him and without him was not anything made.

That was made and in him was life, and the life was the light of men Verse 14,.

And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory.

The glory is of the only begotten, of the Father, full of grace and truth Verse 16,.

And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace.

Now I want to look back at verse 14 again, and I want to read it in a different translation.

The Rotherham translation says it this way and the word became flesh and pitched his tent among us, hallelujah.

And we gazed upon his glory, a glory full of favor and truth.

So that's what I want to just speak briefly about.

Christmas.

God pitched his tent and I'm so glad he did.

You know, I like the message he said.

He came into the neighborhood.

I'm so glad God came into my neighborhood.

I can think of some neighborhoods where God still needs to come into their neighborhood.

Maybe you live in one of those neighborhoods, I don't know.

But you know, people celebrate Christmas without even knowing what it means.

I mean, they just think it's the season.

You know seasons, greetings and all that.

I appreciate Donald Trump.

When he was president, one of the first things he said is let's get rid of this seasons greeting business.

Let's say Merry Christmas.

You know these big corporations trying to clamp down on Merry Christmas.

They were trying to get rid of Merry Christmas and he spoke up and I mean it changed.

It still changed.

It's different.

When I go shopping, when I'm out in the deal, I just make it a point to say Merry Christmas.

You know they'll try to say seasons greetings.

Well, you know, baloney, it's Merry Christmas and I know it can be Hanukkah.

You know, hanukkah was a couple weeks ago, but still it's Merry Christmas.

And so what does it mean?

Well, it means that God became a man legally, by birth.

He became a man legally.

Only God could become a man.

I mean, that's just.

You know.

Merry says how can this be?

When the angel of Gabriel said you're going to have a child, what, how can this be?

I don't know a man, I'm not, I'm not married, I don't have a man, I've not been with a man.

He said the power, the Holy Ghost, shall come upon you, the power of the highest.

You know it's going to be by the Holy Ghost.

And so she and that and that holy thing that she'll be born, will be called the son of God.

And oh, by the way, your cousin Mary is in the sixth month, who was too old to conceive.

She's in her sixth month, for with God, all things are possible.

Oh, what a miracle it is.

Christmas is a miracle that God cared so much about humanity that had fallen because of Adam, that he said I know what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna go down there myself.

I'm gonna become a man, I'm gonna be a legal representative of the human race, I'm gonna be born fair and square into that place and I'm gonna save them from their sins.

And so, even though as the Word of God, he was eternally coexistent with the Father and the Holy Spirit, I mean he's always existed.

In the beginning Beginning of what I mean, there wasn't any beginning really, because God's always been, but in the beginning of this creation it was still that way.

The word beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God.

Then subsequently he became flesh and so the second person of the Godhead became a human being.

And I like Webster's dictionary no, webster was of course a Christian and responsible for all kinds of things besides the dictionary he was quite a man of letters, legally, I mean, he went to Yale Law School, he got a degree in law, couldn't practice law, couldn't get a job practicing law, but he became a writer.

He's one of the most prolific writers in our early history of this country and he describes, or he defines, the word incarnation in the Webster's 1828 dictionary the unity of divinity with humanity in Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the unity of divinity and humanity in Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

And I tell you, any religion that denies the incarnation is false.

I'm gonna say it again Any religion that denies the incarnation is false.

And what have we done as America?

America was founded upon this principle, founded upon the incarnation, founded upon the word of God.

I mean, the word of God was our textbook for 200 years.

I mean, it hadn't been just very recently that they got the Bible out of the schools and quit using it as a textbook, and then they got rid of prayer.

And that's all recent and it's all about a sign it's own purpose.

Are we gonna provide a pushback or what we're providing?

A pushback?

Amen, we might not prevail in this country.

I mean, I'm not responsible for whether this country goes down the tubes or not, but I'm telling you, as long as this church is on the earth, we're going to stand for the incarnation, we're gonna stand for the name of Jesus, we're gonna stand for the fact that there's only one way to heaven, and that's his name is Jesus.

He said I'm the way, the truth and the life, and every other religion is false.

Oh, that's just so well.

You know, I'm sorry.

I agree with the Bible may not be fashionable, and I can understand, because when you're not edgy, you know, when you haven't ever heard the Bible, lots of people think they're Christians but they really haven't said yes to Jesus.

So he pitched his tent.

He pitched his tent, we moved into the neighborhood.

He's a glory to God, and the writers of the Gospels record that this glory was full of favor and truth.

In fact, I like the amplified in verse 16.

It says we all have received the fullness, and one grace after another, and spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing, and even favor upon favor, and gift heaped upon gift.

Isn't that good, gift heaped upon gift?

We've all received that.

Now, some people, you know they don't know that they have that waiting for them under the proverbial gospel tree.

See, I really believe all this gift giving and all the traditions that come with Christmas and how people, even unbelievers, even people of other faiths, they celebrate Christmas, they give Christmas gifts, even though they might be Hindu, they might be Muslim I don't really know what Muslims do for Christmas, I'm not sure, but my guess is they probably have a Christmas tree and they probably give out gifts.

I don't know, but anyway, regardless, I believe it came from this verse right here that people, you know in the beginning, when people used to know more about the Bible, they realized that there were, there was, it was blessings associated with being a child of God.

He pitched his tent first among us.

That had to happen.

First he became among us and he did that so that he could pitch his tent within us.

He wants to be, he wants us to be his dwelling place.

He doesn't just want to be in the earth, he wants to be in you and I.

And so when we were born again, when we accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, then we, you know, we became his personal tent individually.

And then we find that there are other believers like us and we gather together like this on this day and this building.

And he is in here corporately.

This is his tent, looks like a tent outside.

I get tickled at people.

They just get.

So you know, they've been so offended in church and they'll talk about well, the church is just, it's not a building.

The church isn't a building.

That building I would never go to that old building.

I'm just a worship God on my own.

Well, you don't even know what the Bible says.

I mean what.

You know.

You got to have a building to worship in, unless you want to worship outside in the hot sun or in the cold, freezing rain.

No, the building itself is not the temple.

But when the temple gathers in the building, you know that building becomes a kind of a space.

It becomes a kind of a special place.

I come in here and I feel God in here.

I know he doesn't live in here like that as a temple, but angels are in here and so we ought to honor the house of God.

We're the house, but yet we gather in a place.

And so now, when we give Jesus our heart in our lives, we qualify for that.

Verse 16, which we read.

I wanna read Ephesians 3 and 19,.

Very similar verse in Ephesians.

It says the unlimited measure of the new birth.

See, god wants us to be filled up throughout our being to all the fullness of God, so that we may have the richest experience of God's presence in our lives, completely filled and flooded with God himself.

Praise God.

That's God's plan for the church.

There's some things we've gotta get back to personally and corporately.

We've gotta get back to him being the head of the church, amen.

You know we just begun to plumb the depths of what God started that night in Bethlehem.

I mean, he started something huge.

He started something immense and I believe we're living in a time where we begin to discover some of the things we're talking about today, so filled with the Holy Ghost that it just flows out of us into the dark world.

You know the world's dark, gross darkness has covered the earth.

But guess what?

Light always reproves darkness.

Amen, hallelujah.

I think about I celebrated 33 Christmases without this knowledge.

I grew up in Catholic church.

Man, I mean, from a little kid I knew about Jesus.

I knew about God the Father.

I recited the Apostles Creed before I could even pronounce the words.

I went to Catholic school.

I was the nun's favorite.

I'm not bragging, I'm just reporting.

They saw a call of God on my life.

I'll give them that much.

And I did have.

I didn't remember it until I got saved at age 33 and about a year later God began to unravel some things before me and I began to see some things that had happened.

And I was four years of age in our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church when missionaries from South America came to speak to our little congregation about the size of that middle section right there and I felt fire all over me.

I felt my whole body was just like all my hair was standing on end and I felt God.

And it was God saying that's you, you're gonna, you belong to me.

You got a call and of course the little Catholic boy thinks what Priest celibate?

And when I discovered Gladys, I knew that wasn't gonna work for me.

No, and I celebrated Christmas.

But I didn't have.

He hadn't pitched his tent in me, hadn't pitched his tent in me.

He wanted to.

He made a bid.

I think when I was a child I'd have just said yes, no matter what.

Think my want tos would have changed.

I'm not saying I would have become a priest, but I wouldn't have waited until I was 33 years old to get saved.

Thank God I got saved.

Gladys was really glad that I got saved.

Maybe you're glad I got saved.

Oh, he started something there in Bethlehem, and so how appropriate I think it is for us to remind ourselves that he's pitched his tent in us.

And, per adventure, there's anybody under the sound of my voice, whether they're watching by live stream, or whether they're gonna watch it later, or they're watching it right now, or whether you're here and you really maybe kind of understand what I'm talking about.

You might've been grown up in church all your life.

I've met lots of people that grew up in church that never got, didn't get saved.

I just didn't hear.

I never heard you must be born again.

I never heard that in the Catholic church.

Matter of fact, once I got born again, I went back and confronted the Catholic priest it was my pastor at the time.

He didn't have any good answers and he, supposedly charismatic, spoke in tongues.

Well, he might've.

I don't know, I'm not his judge but he didn't know squat about the Bible and spent 12 years in cemetery, a seminary.

So I just think it would be right for us to all say a sinner's prayer this morning.

Let's let God know that we know what he's done and, in per adventure, there's anybody in here.

I'm not gonna give an altar call, I'm not gonna have you come forward or anything like that.

I just want you to pray a sinner's prayer and let's just commit ourselves to God fresh and new this Christmas.

And if you pray in this and you've really never given your heart to Jesus, listen, he's listening to you right now and he's gonna come into your heart and change your life, but you have to be willing.

So let's just close our eyes and lift our right hand up to heaven and let's say this prayer together, everybody.

Say it out loud where you can hear it, don't just whisper it.

Say it out loud where you can hear it.

And since everybody else is praying, you'll have to pray a little louder than you normally do.

Say, oh God, I know, without Jesus I'm lost.

Without Jesus I'll die and go to hell.

But oh God, I wanna be saved.

I wanna go to heaven.

Jesus, I believe you're the son of God.

I believe you died for my sins.

But God raised you from the dead.

Come into my heart, make me new, make me the kind of person you want me to be.

I give you my life and I make you my Lord.

Devil, get out of my life.

You're not my Lord.

Jesus is my Lord.

And now, god, you're more than just my God.

You're my very own heavenly father.

I'm your very own child.

I'm saved.

Thank God, I'm saved.

I'm not trying to get saved, I'm not gonna be saved.

I'm saved right now.

Well, come on, let's rejoice this morning.

Hallelujah, glory to God.

Now, when you're praying with others to receive Jesus, you can shorten it up just a little bit.

You can stick with the basics, god hears it.

It's not any particular type of prayer.

You just have to admit that Jesus is Lord and that you turn away from the devil, the world of flesh, the devil, sin.

Turn away from sin, repent just means to turn away, that's all it means.

Well, I started confessing my sins.

What if you forgot one?

See, it's not about confessing your sins, that's not part of getting saved.

You confess your sin after you save, and there's so few that you know when it happens.

And then you confess it right then and get forgiven.

But when you get saved, somebody said oh, I confess my sins.

No, well, you've sinned so much you couldn't possibly remember all the sin.

So if that's what it took to get saved, see, we're in trouble, aren't we?

All that does is open a door of doubt later oh, I forgot that.

Oh, I must not be saved, see, no, it's not about confessing your sin, it's about turning away.

Hallelujah, come on, let's rejoice this morning.

Hallelujah, glory to God, thank you Lord.

Thank you, lord that we're saved.

And not only are we saved, we're healed.

You know, the same sacrifice on the cross took care of our sins, took care of our sicknesses.

We've been delivered from the power, authority, jurisdiction and control of darkness.

Demons don't have any, can't hold sway over us.

Depression, grief, fear none of those things are consistent with what God Jesus did.

Yeah, god did through Jesus.