Christmas Message: With Jesus we are on the Winning Team

You're listening to a message to go from acts church.

We hope this message will light up your tea.

Let's read the would have got together luked up the

two verses eight to fourteen. The Bible says, Now there

were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields,

keeping watch over.

Their flock by night.

And behold, an Angel of the Lord stood before them,

and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and

they were greatly afraid.

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. For there is born to

you this day in the city of David, a savior

who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the

sign to you. You will find a babe wrapped in

swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was

with an angel a multitude of the heavily hol praising

God and saying glory to God in the highest and

on earth peace goodwill toward men. Now I want to

say a few things about what we just read. The

Angel was here telling the people on earth not to

be afraid. Do not be afraid, is what the Angel

wants to say to all of us in this room,

fear can be very crippling, and I don't know what

you are afraid about as the year closes. For some parents,

you could be afraid about the future for your children,

some marriages here. You know, you could be struggling and afraid,

you know whether the future will hold for you. Some

of you could be afraid because maybe your parents are

not well in hospital and you're wondering, you know, how

will twenty twenty six be, will they be healthy, will

they even be alive? Others are afraid because your finances

are not as healthy as.

It should be.

Maybe the economy is not doing well for you, whatever

it is. Students could be afraid. Maybe a big exam

year is coming. Maybe you've just finished USPM and you're

gonna wait for your results, so you're a little bit anxious.

But the angel says, do not be afraid. Why because

there is good news, and the word here says good tidings,

good news of great joy. I don't know when it

was the last time any of you receive good news.

It's wonderful to receive good news.

You know. For example, you know you.

Go to the doctors and you get your medical checkup

and the doctors tell you that, you know, you report,

your medical report is showing really good signs, and you

you went worried. In fact, some of us go to

the hospital and our blood pressure is usually higher when

we go to the hospital. At home, it was lower

in the hospital. You know, it's higher because we're anxious.

We're anxious about the medical report. We're anxious about our health,

and the doctor might say to you, hey, your cholesterol

levels are really good. That's exactly what happened to me

two days ago.

When I went for my medical checkup.

It was not really good one year ago, but by

the grace of God, two days ago, it.

Was all good.

And I did expect it, and you know, I expected

my sugar level to be higher because from September to

just last week, I've been having a lot of sugary stuff.

I have sweet tooth and I love cakes and cookies

and sweet stuff, you know, and I've been celebrating, you know,

since my third years to wedding anniversary in September, my

fifty fifth birthday in September, celebrating.

The church has been so good.

To me, giving me cakes everywhere I go and I

had to say to.

Them, please stop, please stop.

Me the cakes, because you know, my father was diabetic.

And so you know, I get a bit worried.

But then you know, the health report came out good

and with good news, you know, you think, number one,

you don't deserve it. Number two, you think, thank God,

thank God. And I think many of you have received

good news whatever it is in your life, and it

makes you feel good. But this good tidings or good

news that the Angel brought was a different kind of

good news.

It was a good news.

That the Bible says gives us great joy, not just joy,

not just some joy, not just good joy, but great joy.

And the difference between just.

Joy and great joy is that great joy involves rejoicing,

meaning to say that great joy is whoohoo. Great joy

is celebration.

Now we.

It's just oh no no, I things come back, come back, whoahoo,

it's come back halleljah phrase God. So you're watching your

favorite team playing you know, either it's football or whatever

it is, right and uh, you know they're playing well,

they're winning or looks like they're winning, and it gives

you joy. But until they score, you will not be

as you know, uh, rejoicing as much as as they score.

That's why you have people jumping from their seat and

saying yes, you know, and you know. And then towards

the end when your team wins, you know, you are

giving high fives and you're hugging even people you don't know.

And that's what happens because us great joy is woohoo, yay, celebration.

Come on, you know, high fives, hugs, Yes, we want,

we want, And Christmas is a message to all of

us that because of Jesus we win. Somebody say, Amen,

that's something to celebrate. That's something to say, whoa whoao

for That's something to rejoice. It's not just joy. It's

not just a little bit of happiness that you know.

Maybe you ate your favorite dish or dran your favorite

milkshake and it gives you that rush, but it closes

by the night, it ends by the morning. This joy

that the Angel said, it's great joy, is a joy

that from within you you just want to leap. That's

why they say leap for joy. When was the last

time you felt like that? Maybe when your favorite team

one and you just couldn't hold your joy inside, You

couldn't hold your joy back. You just leapt and rejoice.

That is the kind of joy God wants to give you.

Can I hear good?

Amen?

And the Angel said, this is the good news that

will give you great joy. It's not just any good news.

It's not just a good health report. It's not just

a good result for SPM. It's not just that. And

even that already we celebrate. But this kind of good

news is the good news that will cause all of

you to say, yes, yes, thank you God, this is

what I need and what I have been waiting for.

Now. To be able to understand.

Good news, you've got to remember there's a bad news,

and what is the bad news.

The bad news is that.

God, being so holy as he is, hates sin.

He hates sin, and.

Yet the Bible says that all of us, all of us, including.

Myself, yes the pastor too.

All of us have sin and fallen short of the

glory of God. Fallen shot is an accounting term. It

means you awe big time and you cannot balance the

budget no matter how you try. You and I are wanting,

You and I are owing, and we will never be

able to pay this debt we have sin. So dark

is our sin, so deep is the stain we can

never be cleared or cleansed. Never, So bad is the

debt we will never be able to pay.

And this is the bad news.

The bad news is that we will never be able

to work ourselves to heaven. We will never be able

to work ourselves to please God. So God himself had

to pay this debt. God himself is the only one

that can pay this debt.

Can I hear? Good? Amen? His name is Jesus.

And I'm telling you when you are in a mess,

when you are owing, when there is a debt in

your life you can never pay. When there's a mistake

you made, you can never repay, you can never reverse

the clock, and you live in regret, and you live

like the two men here. You know who could have

gone on and while they achieve their stars, they would

have lost their family and been worth it. No, every

man and every woman here would know what is really valuable.

But sometimes it's too late. And yet I want to

say to you there is good news. Somebody say, Amen,

of great joy?

Why?

Because with God all things are possible. Because with God,

there is never a dead end, there is always a

u turn, there is always a second chance. So you're

here this morning on Christmas Day. Yes, we reach each other.

Merry Christmas. But what is Christmas? Christmas is Jesus. Christmas

is a gift from God, who loves you and me

and said, I know that without.

Me you are in debt.

You cannot pay, you cannot reverse the time, you cannot

return back to that place where you regret and wish

that you never regretted.

You will never be able to do that.

But with God, he can restore, He can make all

things new, He can make the impossible possible.

And this is for all people. The Bible says, for there.

Is born to you this day in the City of David,

a savior who is Christ.

The Lord.

What is so big deal about this birth? You know,

I think everyone.

Is excited about a birth. We get very excited about

the baby.

That's why when the baby came up, all of you

began to melt. I could feel you melting. And by

the way, that's a real baby if you didn't notice.

And by the way, those are his real parents. That's

why he felt so comfortable. No crying. Okay, yeah, And

I think my wife was really caught up with the

fact that baby Jesus was looking at you know, the

actor Melchior bowing down and like, yeah, that's right down

before me. Yes, yes, didn't didn't you just enjoy the

other two guys was what their names speaking in speaking

in Mandarin?

Was it Hockeyen? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think they brought life

to the whole show. Yeah, Elvin, good job for putting them.

I think we should include them in other whatever, not

just plays, but.

Even I think they can m see it wedding. You know,

they can do all these kind of things.

Uh yeah, Elvin, you can be their manager and collect

some commission. But they really brought, you know, another angle

to the whole thing, and we really enjoyed.

Yeah, so all of us know, we just love babies.

You know.

They even had a therapy for prisoners one time and

big size tattoo all over, no more teeth because they've

been fighting and being bashed up and they're huge guys

right there.

They just have no love for anybody.

And there was a therapy that was done in America

where they brought little babies to the prison.

They did the experiment and.

They asked for these big, huge gangsters to hold the

baby and you could see according to the report that men,

big men melted as soon.

As they touched the baby.

The world celebrates babies, but this was going to be

different because this is not just any baby.

This was a promise fulfilled.

God promise that he will come and he will help

us settle our debts and do what we only dream

we wish we could do, but could never do by ourselves.

We need God, and so he came. Why did he

have to be born? Well, this is the requirement. The

requirement is that for someone to die for your sins

one day, he had to take all of your sin.

He cannot just be born or introduced to the world

at thirty years old, twenty five years old, twenty or

as a teenager fifteen years old. No, he had to

take the whole form. That's why in Christianity recall it

truly God and truly Men. This is the power in

this baby. The power in this baby is is He's.

Not just truly God.

That means all of Jesus is God, but all of

Jesus was also men. This is the miracle, this is

the phenomenon. This is what a lot of people don't understand.

He had to be both truly God, soday. He doesn't

mess up because prophets have come. And while they are

good prophets, they're also human beings, just human beings, and

they can mess up. But this God, this Jesus, had

to be truly and fully God so that he doesn't

mess up, because God doesn't mess up. But he also

had and I hope you understand this, he had to

also be truly man. He had to take our form

to pay our prid This was a requirement. This was

let me tell you before I finished, this was a right.

Let me tell you this way. For those of you

who don't understand this, some of you are old enough

to remember that Obama was president of the United States.

Some of you are old enough to remember that Obama.

They say that he was probably one of the better ones.

A lot of people celebrated him. I'm not sure. I'm

not here to talk about politics, but what I want

to say is the only.

Biggest opposition to his presidency was one fact that they

couldn't prove, was he born in America. Because if Obama

was proven not to be born in America, he cannot

be president because only people born in America can be

the American president. I asked you with me, Why did

Jesus have to be born? That was a requirement, that

was that gave him the right to become.

Our savior.

Our savior needed to take our form, take our sin,

take our pain, take our worthy, take our you know,

a regret, take our guilt.

Take he had to take.

He had he had to be like one of us

to pay the price for us.

Eyboy, Okay, this is why we celebrate.

The birth, and it's the birth of not just an

ordinary child, God child, Man and God coming together is

a midle. He was born of a virgin birth, meaning

that no man was involved in this. It was God

putting his seed into a woman. And God can do that.

He can do that. He can even just snap the

finger and say be with child, and that's all he

needs to do. And Jesus is that child. We all celebrate.

Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Now you know why

this is good news and good news that you should say, yes, yes,

there is a God who loves me.

So much that he would go through so much for me. Everybody.

Okay, I'm going to draw to a close in a

few minutes. He is Christ, the Lord, and he is

on our side. Immanuel is his name. I pray that

before I close today that those of you who have

not yet received this gift called Jesus into your heart,

that you don't have something in your heart that is

totally God and totally man.

One name Jesus, I pray.

I hope that you will invite him to be on

your side. Is nothing like getting Jesus on your side.

You know. I'm thinking about when I was growing up.

And how I don't know why, but I'm always being

chosen for teams that don't win. Although we stand in

a line, Remember those days we stand in line and

you go like.

You left you right, you left you right right.

And all the ones on the right one team, all

the ones on the left is one team. I don't

know why, nine hour or ten times I'm in a

losing team. Maybe I grew up fat, or I grew

I don't know, I didn't. It's like, you know, oh,

this guy, you know, Kenneth. You know, I don't think

you play sports, right, But every now and then there

is a very compassionate guy, you the guy who is

the top player in the school, right, and he says, ah, you, Okayneth,

let me join your team.

Right, Jo, have you ever been there before?

And all your friends are saying, oh, as long as

Messy is part of our team, as long as we

have Messy, we are going to win. And I'm telling

you you might have been on a losing team, you

feel for the last one year, the last five years,

the last ten years. But can I tell you the truth,

Jesus wants to be part of your team. And I

want you to know that as soon as the baby

was born, the whole world rejoice because we say, God,

thank you for sending Messy.

Oh no, not messy, Jesus.

Thank you, because we've been losing all these years.

And then you send the son of the Living God,

the King of Kings.

Wow. The moment we saw that he was born and

that God made him a part of our team, part

of our lives, we knew that we are now going

to be on the winning team. We are going to

be on the winning side. We are winners through Jesus.

And all the winners in the room say, all the

winners in the room say, and it's not because of us, No,

it's not because of us. Christians in this room aren't perfect,

far from perfect. We're just human beings.

Simple. We made mistakes. We made mistakes, we do. Even

past us made mistakes, and we need Jesus.

So as I close, I read you the last verse

here at the last says glory to God. In fact,

the angel said it, glory to God in the Highest.

If XTV can put it up, just the last verse

of Luke two fourteen, glory to God in the Highest.

If you can put that verse up, let's just end

with this. Thank you x TV. Look such beautiful words.

Let's close in the next two minutes. God wants all

of you and me to have peace. We know that

the title is when wisdom, When wisdom finds peace. Even

wisdom needs peace. Even rich people need peace, poor people

need peace, Women need peace, men need peace, students need peace,

business people need peace. Employers need peace. Employees neak peace.

Students and young adults, young families. We young children need peace.

We need to find peace. But this is how you

find it. As I draw to a close and remind

you of this verse. Simple, when men on earth and

women on earth can give God the glory, then on

earth we will have both peace and favor. Good will

just means favor. How many of you will like the

favor of God on your life. Let me see your hands.

How have you like the favor of God on your life?

Favor of God.

Amen.

The favor of God is amazing. It means that even

when we don't deserve it, he still does it. Even

when we don't deserve it, it still happens. Beautiful things

can happen in our lives even when we don't deserve it,

because God is a good God and He loves us.

We hope you've been blessed by this message. For more

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that this week is going to be a good week,

a hit for you. God bless