MID WEEK MOTIVATION - LOVE "Merry Christmas" John 3:16-18

Merry Christmas family.

It is Christmas Day, december the 25th.

We do not have regular programming here at DeSoto Hills today, but me and Grant did want to bring y'all a podcast and wrap up our, our, our, to bring y'all a podcast and wrap up our Advent series, but we wish you everyone a Merry Christmas.

It is just a wonderful day to be with family and we hope that it is a fantastic day for you and your family.

What do y'all typically do on Christmas Day?

I guess it changes from fantastic day for you and your family.

What do you all typically do on Christmas Day?

I guess it changes from year to year, depending on your relatives it changes most of the time.

For the past several years, we do Christmas Eve at home, christmas morning at home.

What happens after that can change sometimes.

What happens after that can change sometimes.

But the tradition that we have is we wake up that morning, open Christmas presents, do all of those things.

We eat breakfast casserole and blueberry muffins.

We do breakfast casserole too.

That is our.

Because I can get up and just because I'll be up before everybody, I can get that, put that in the oven so it's just ready when you open, and so it really turns out to probably be brunch and we just have that all day long.

We don't cook a lunch or anything like that, and then kids just hang out and play with their gifts and do those things.

It's after we open gifts.

It becomes a pretty relaxed time Get naps, just lay around, let the kids do their stuff with their new toys, put Legos together, all of those things.

It's usually if you get a Lego set, I mean it's got to be done right now, right.

So we just kind of kind of take it easy, uh, on christmas day.

Uh, we usually aren't traveling on christmas day, but could be the day after, could be, so yeah, well, we'll, uh, we normally wake up and of course, the the kids will open their gifts.

Uh, my children don't get up at the early crack of night.

Mine don't either.

No, when I was growing up, I would be in bed waiting until a decent hour, yes, which would be 4.30 or 5.

Yes, they would say don't get up before then.

But my girls I'm still the first one up, and it's crack daylight by the time they even start to stir.

Oh, it could be.

I mean, because Christmas Eve is so exciting and they don't go to sleep, so they sleep in and there's no reason to wake them up, right?

So when they wake up and it's interesting because they sleep upstairs, all the kids, and we've kind of always had this rule is you come down together?

Okay, I like that.

And so that allows Amber to get all the pictures of them coming down and the surprise faces and all of those things.

So they have to come down together.

But when one of them wakes up then you can hear them upstairs.

The pitter-patter of feet and all those kind of things, and can we come down yet and all this kind of stuff.

So, but yeah, it's not super early.

Well, we do Jennifer's Family a few days before Christmas, normally the 23rd, 24th and then we will open gifts, eat some breakfast and then about lunchtime we'll typically head over to James Lewis's house.

Our pastor of marriage is my dad.

Since they live in town and Jamie's family is in town as well, we typically will do that family on Christmas Day, so we'll eat some hamburgers.

We typically do hamburgers, that's Neil and French fries homemade French fries and some ice cream.

That's our Christmas family tradition.

Which sounds crazy to some people.

But not in North Mississippi, Absolutely not.

I mean, it could be cold, but it may not be either.

Right, our ice cream machine is on the fritz, by the way, and so that I know and it's one of those White Mountain Anybody who makes homemade ice cream knows that the White Mountain barrel, the big wooden barrel, that's the one that every grandmother in Mississippi uses, and White Mountain's gone out of business, so there is no more White Mountain.

So James Lewis is real nervous about what we're going to do next.

I found him a machine at Kohl's.

It's way cheaper than White Mountain, but he's not convinced that it's going to make as good of ice cream.

So I may have to buy one.

I have a barrel Now.

I don't think it's White Mountain, but I have a barrel.

They still make those barrels and they make them way cheaper than what White.

Mountain, which is why White Mountain's probably gone out of business is because they were so expensive.

Those things were like 300 bucks.

So I may have to buy one and make great ice cream in it, and then you know, go over there and say here's your machine now.

But, anyway, that's our Christmas traditions.

We want all of you guys to get on our Facebook page and let us know about your Christmas traditions.

We love reading about those things and fellowshipping on social media.

There's so many bad things, Grant, about social media.

We like for our Facebook page to be a base for positive and for people to get to know each other.

Which is essentially why we do these portions of the podcast is because you all get to know us a little bit better and then we, in turn, get to go online and read about the comments that you post about your lives, because I absolutely love that moment.

All right, we're going to now get to the point called the Midweek Moment.

Last week, we talked about joy and focusing on week three of Advent.

Today, we're going to talk about love.

All right, Grant, week four is love Fitting and a total accident, by the way, that Christmas landed on a Wednesday, but how awesome that it's Christmas morning and we get to talk about the fourth week of Advent.

Right.

So how Advent is set up, it's four Sundays that you light the candles, right?

And so we had hope, peace, joy and love should be the fourth Sunday of Advent.

So if you have an Advent wreath and you're lighting the candles, you would have lit the love candle also called the angel's candle on Sunday, and then you have the white one in the middle.

Christmas Eve is the white one, and it's the Christ candle that you light on Christmas Eve, and so, if you're following the wreath, that's what it is.

Because of the podcast, we're just talking about Advent in a different way, but so, for today, what I want us to look at is love and the angel's candle, but I also want us to talk about Christ and the Christ candle as well, so we're kind of combining two in one.

I love it and I just want to tell you we were listening to the podcast with my wife the other day and we ended up having to pause it because we got to our destination and she was like but I wanted to find out.

She said I wanted to find out about.

She said I don't know about Advent either.

She's like these podcasts have been great, because I have gone my whole life not understanding each one.

So, anyway, tell us about candle number four.

So it's the love candle, also called the angel's candle, because they are coming and proclaiming the story of love, the story of Christ, to us.

Also, the Christ candle is in the center, it's the white candle.

You understand that right, that we celebrate Christ's advent, his coming to earth, on Christmas, and so the verse today is not really one from any Christmas story.

It's not from Matthew chapter 2.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

We've been in Matthew chapter 2 all month.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

It's not Matthew chapter 2, and it's not Luke chapter 2.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention Luke 2 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 2 all month.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

It's not Matthew chapter 2 and it's not Luke chapter 2.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention Luke 2 · chapter mention

I want us to read this morning probably one of the most known verses in Scripture.

It's John chapter 3, verse 16.

John 3:16

I love it.

It says this John writes this For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, and whoever believes in should not perish but have eternal life.

So so we got there.

There's that.

While it's not in part of the Christmas story, that is the Christmas story that God loved us so much that he sent his uh.

The ESV says he gave his only son.

Uh, the King James version.

That's how I memorized it.

You know for God's love that he gave his only begotten son.

I think the NIV says his unique son.

What we know about that and what we understand is Jesus is different.

He is unique.

He was begotten of the Father because he was not like any other human being ever.

We see in him the Christ incarnate, where he is fully God, yet he is fully man at the same time, which blows your mind.

I used to try to say he was 100% God and 100% man.

I don't think that's an accurate description, because if you're a mathematician that you can't do that.

Right.

And so instead to say he's fully God and he's fully man, which still doesn't make sense.

But he was unique, there was nobody like him, and God loved us so much that he sent Jesus to come and save us.

It says that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

We don't read much after John 3, 16, but just quickly to follow that.

In verse 17 he says For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

And so that's pretty easy to see.

Jesus did not come to condemn.

We live in such a society today, and for the Jews in the first century it was the same thing.

We can race to condemnation, we can race to oh, you messed up, you blew it, you did these things.

Jesus didn't come to condemn the world, he came to save the world.

And while we run to that and we see love, and while we're quick to condemn, we're also quick to say but God, he doesn't condemn me, he loves me.

Well, yes, he does, and he came to save you.

But look at verse 18.

He goes on and says Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God, Verse 19.

And this is the judgment.

The light has come into the world and people love darkness rather than the light because their works were evil For everyone.

Who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his work should be exposed.

But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

It's interesting.

He says whoever does not believe is condemned already.

So Jesus didn't come to condemn the world, he doesn't have to.

If we don't believe in Christ, we condemn ourselves is basically what he says.

Because we love the darkness, we are sinful people and if we don't believe that Jesus came, that he lived, that he died, that he arose to offer salvation for us, we condemn ourselves.

God doesn't have to condemn us.

Jesus didn't have to condemn us.

We condemn ourselves.

So here's where the love of God comes in.

The love is not that he doesn't condemn us.

The love is we are condemned, we stand condemned.

The love of God is that he sent Jesus as an answer for that condemnation.

He sent Jesus to redeem us from that condemnation.

So he comes.

The love message is that Jesus came to buy us back, to redeem us from that condemnation.

So, for God so loved us so much that even while we were still sinners, as Paul says, Christ came, he lived, he died for us, he arose for us.

And so as we celebrate Jesus coming at Christmas and the message of love and the Christ candle that he came, let's also look forward to that.

He is coming back and we can be with him when we believe in him, Because if you don't believe in him you're condemned already.

But he loved us so much that when he comes back we can.

We can be with him because we have eternal life, because we have believed in Christ, the son of God.

Thanks so much for listening.

If you don't have a church home, we'd love to see you here on Sunday morning.

You can catch our services online at desotohillscom, our YouTube channel at Desoto Hills Baptist Church.

For all of our church family, we love you.

We will take next week off for New Year's, but we will be back here on Wednesday the 8th for another podcast.

We do have lots of exciting things happening in 2025, and we can't wait to share some of that stuff with you guys in the coming weeks.

Have a happy holiday and a very merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas.