Christmas Eve 2022

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Good to be with you this evening.

My name's Ryan Ingram.

We're thrilled to have you join us today.

And I want to show you a picture.

It's actually one of my favorite pictures of all time.

It's actually one of three pictures that are hanging in our house.

Yes, we only have three pictures.

I understand that's not very many.

But it's made the top three for a decade so far.

But to set it up, or at least give you a little bit of context, let me show you another picture.

This is our Christmas card from this last year.

There you go.

And yes, we are very Swedish.

I get that.

There.

And this is my incredible family here.

Three beautiful kids.

My daughter's 18, almost off to college next year.

Ryder, her name's Ella, Ryder and Miles.

And then, hey, this is kind of fun.

My wife and I just celebrated 20 years of marriage this last week.

There.

Ah, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, so so 10 years ago, let's rewind and let me show you why this is one of our favorite pictures of all time.

This was the first and the last time we took our kids to go see Santa Claus.

Miles, we love Miles.

We called him Miles of Smiles, and there was nothing we could do to get Miles to smile when he saw Santa that day.

What you don't see, or you can't wouldn't know from the picture, is also at the same time was Ryder who is pretty literal, he told Santa Claus he wanted a skateboard, and then waited and stood there with his arms wide open, waiting.

And I had to go to him and go, hey, bud, that's um that's not how it works.

And he walked away empty-handed and disappointed.

It was an epic failure.

Uh and so let me ask you, what is your favorite part about Christmas?

Go ahead, shout it out to me.

Go for it.

Come on.

We'll be verbal.

Jesus! Jesus, family.

And there was a great murmuring in the church.

Um okay, kids, hang on, hang on.

Kids, you're doing it anyways.

What is your favorite part about Christmas?

Yell it out.

Kids, Jesus, got a loud ones over here.

Presents.

Finally, we got somebody honest in the room.

There you go.

Yeah, presents.

Isn't that the reason you go to see Santa in the first place is to ask him for presents?

And then, like you think about these presents, they're wrapped and they're under the tree.

And just remember, for those of us who aren't kids, remember how torturous it was, those presents under the tree?

What is it?

And waiting to see, and you open it up either on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, depending on your tradition, to find out and discover is it the gift that you long for, you hope for?

Uh, like an iPhone 14?

Or was it socks?

Why do we give socks on Christmas?

I don't get that.

Stop giving socks.

Um, it they're always socks.

Uh one year I got underwear.

That's a whole nother story.

That's worse to open up in front of people.

Now, here's the interesting thing.

Have you ever wondered, like, why do we wrap gifts?

Like, we spend an incredible amount of time wrapping gifts, go to all this trouble, and and some of you, I'm not gonna mention who, but some of you are gonna spend most of tonight wrapping gifts.

You're gonna get very little sleep.

Why do we go to so much trouble wrapping all these gifts?

Uh there's an anthropologist who's named Chris Cowell, and he wrote this great little article on why we wrap gifts in it.

He writes, the wrapping of gifts points to a more essential experience of what humans have learned to frame objects to designate them as special.

Wrapping an ordinary object is what transforms it into something extraordinary.

In fact, we wrap gifts to take something ordinary and common and make it special, don't we?

Because if I just handed you something, you're like, what is this?

Is this a gift?

I'm not even sure.

But the minute I wrap it, it makes it a gift, doesn't it?

And it's wrapped, you're like, oh my goodness, oh, thank you.

And we wrap gifts to add that element of surprise too, right?

And that element of surprise of what is it actually adds to the enjoyment of the gift.

It actually adds to our level of gratitude when we experience the gift as well.

We wrap gifts to take something that's impersonal, like an object, and make it deeply personal.

Right?

Every gift is has a giver behind the gift.

And often when we give a gift, we write a tag on it because we want people to know that was mine, right?

And we even write a note and begin to share with someone, hey, we want to make this personal.

This is just for you.

I want you to know how much I think of you and you to feel really good.

Now, have you ever wondered why do we give presents on Christmas?

Other holidays we don't necessarily do that except for birthdays.

Why do we take all the trouble and give presents and wrap them up?

Well, to understand that, we have to go back to the very first Christmas.

And so let's take a look.

And we read it earlier, the very first Christmas and the very first gift to discover and understand what's so significant about all the gifts that we're gonna do and partake in tomorrow.

And if you remember, it was just read, Mary and Joseph, they're in Bethlehem.

Mary gives birth to Jesus, and then there's shepherds in a field watching their flock by night.

And then suddenly an angel of the Lord shows up to them, and this is where we pick up the story.

But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid.

Now, why did the angel say, Don't be afraid?

Because, by the way, contrary to public opinion, angels aren't cute, fat little babies with wings on it.

Angels are brilliant, fierce warriors of heaven.

And so when they show up on the scene, you're going to be afraid.

He says, Do not be afraid.

And he goes on to say, I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all people.

In fact, what I'm about to tell you, friends, this is gonna make your day.

Oh, it's gonna make your year.

No, it's gonna make your life.

And it's actually significant that the angel showed up to shepherds first.

It says, good news that causes great joy for what kind of people?

Help me out.

All people, not just certain people or special people, religious people, perfect people, but every single person.

Shepherds in that day, um, well, they're social outcasts.

They were often unclean, unkept, uncouth.

All the uns, really, if you can think about it.

They were not the type of people you would invite to in a baby shower or announcement of that.

And God, as if with an exclamation point saying, It's good news for every single person, even shepherds who are ostracized from society and looked down upon, they get to news first.

It's all people, you and me, kind of people.

And goes on.

The angel says, What is this good news?

Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you.

He is the Messiah, the Lord.

A savior.

Well, do we need saving?

What why do we need saving?

Well, think about this.

We all recognize this.

The world's broken, isn't it?

Thank you, three of you, that said yes.

The rest of you have been putting your head in never.

The world, we look around and it's so broken.

In fact, almost since the beginning of humanity, we've seen that all is not right around us.

And for millennia after millennia, we've been trying to somehow fix and put things right.

And yet, here's where we find ourselves today that it almost feels like it's just getting worse and not better.

And we think maybe if we get more education, if we get more technology, then we can somehow fix all that is wrong.

But at the heart of it, the root of it, isn't just that all is not right all around us.

But the truth is, and you know this, I know this, we see this, is that all is not right within us.

That we can't fix the brokenness around us because there's actually brokenness within us.

There's an emptiness, there's a craving, there's there's an ache of the soul, isn't it there?

That there must be a deeper, richer, more joy-filled life.

And we spend our days kind of unwrapping presents, if you will, hoping this one will be the one that will satisfy, the one that will be the that fulfills your heart's longing.

And maybe you opened the present of your career and you pursued that for years, and you said maybe that's the one, or you open the present of a relationship or of a friendship, of your marriage, of your family, and you're hoping that will be the one, or open the present of like one day when we're able to travel and do whatever we want to do, and we have this deep longing.

And yet, as we pursue and open these, they never finally or fully satisfy, do they?

They're good things, but they don't finally or fully satisfy our deep craving.

And here's what the good news that causes great joy that the angel was declaring is the one presence that will finally and fully satisfy every single one of us arrived on the planet.

Been foretold, it said the Messiah, this anointed one, right, that was to come.

Prophets, these are ones who spoke for God.

There was this prophet named Isaiah, hundreds of years before this moment, he wrote about what type of person was gonna show up, and we're familiar with this verse around Christmas time.

And he pinned these famous words, for to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.

And what type of savior is gonna show up?

Well, it's a wonderful counselor.

When we need great direction and wisdom and don't know how to navigate this broken life and this broken world, he's a wonderful counselor, he's a mighty God in the midst of the storms and the chaos.

This isn't just a person, this is God in flesh, come, an everlasting father who wants a personal relationship with you.

He's not like our earthly dads, no matter how good or not good they were.

He's a perfect heavenly father.

He is the Prince of Peace, come to fill the empty spaces of our hearts and lives and bring wholeness and life.

That is the Savior today who showed up.

That is the good news that is caused for great joy.

He's saying, This is what happened that day.

And then the angel goes on and says, This will be assigned to you.

You'll find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

And some of you remember, you'll find a baby in swaddling cloths.

You remember that?

Anybody?

Three of you.

Wonderful.

We're doing good so far.

You'll find a baby in swaddling cloths.

Jesus came wrapped in swaddling cloths.

Now think about this.

God came gift-wrapped for you.

He did.

And he came, think about this, the mighty God, we just read that.

The mighty God came in the garb of the poor.

I like how my friend says it.

He says, There are no designer swaddling cloths.

No hipster parent is gonna fit their kid out in swaddling cloths.

See, it was the garb of the marginalized and the poor, the clothing.

And Jesus came, and when he showed up onto the planet, he didn't come in royal robes, but in swaddling cloths.

Now, here's what's incredible and what's so significant and amazing.

Think about this.

This is amazing.

In Jesus, think about this.

In Jesus, we see exactly what God is like.

Like if you want to know what God thinks, if you want to know what God cares about, if you want to know what God's like, think about this.

In Jesus, you get to see precisely, exactly what God is like.

And when he showed up on the planet, he didn't come in royalty and palace and authority.

He came in humility and vulnerability and accessibility.

Humility, think about this is staggering, staggering, that the creator would step into his creation, take on flesh, and become one of us.

The vulnerability of not coming in power, but coming as a helpless babe.

And then the accessibility that even shepherds would come and gather around.

Absolutely staggering.

Now what if there's more?

What if there's more to Christmas than sweet traditions, twinkling lights, and the exchanging presence?

What if the presence actually points to something more significant than you ever realized or imagined?

What if the angels really did bring good news that is cause for great joy for all people, including you and me?

And what if the gift of our heart our hearts ache for was found in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

You know, it's interesting.

We actually find Jesus in the Gospels wrapped two other times in cloths.

So he's wrapped in the claws of the poor.

And then if we fast forward, it's near, well, is the night Jesus was betrayed.

He's with his disciples and he's sitting around a table.

We would call it the Last Supper because it was the last one.

Now, as he's sitting there, what happened just a couple hours before that moment is kind of mind-numbing.

You're just going, like, how did you not get it?

The disciples are arguing with one another who is the greatest.

Think about this.

Jesus just spent three years with them.

He knows his time has come, and the ones that he spent and invested his life in are arguing with each other who is the greatest.

And I love what the text says here.

He says, He now showed them the full extent of his love.

So, by the way, just when my kids are arguing, I don't think to myself, I want to show them the full extent of my love.

Right?

I just don't have that.

And yet in Jesus we see exactly what God is like, and he sees in this moment and what he's gonna do instead of condemning, he's gonna show them the full extent of his love.

And so he gets up from the table, he takes out off his outer garment, and then he wraps a towel around him.

It's the clothing of a slave, the clothing of a servant.

And he gets down on his knees and he goes one by one to each disciple and he washes their feet.

He even goes to the disciple who would betray him, Judas Iscariot, and just a few hours later and he washes his feet too.

Jesus does for the disciples what the disciples were unwilling to do for Jesus.

See, in Jesus, you see exactly what God is like, and a God who sees you, knows you, everything about you, even the hidden parts that you don't want anyone else to know.

And he's not repulsed by you.

He's not turned off by you.

He's moved by compassion to you.

He's the God who stoops low to mend the broken places, to meet the needs, to cleanse the places that need cleansing.

I like how pastor and author John Orberg says it about a gift.

He says, if you want to make your life a gift to someone, look for what needs to be done and then do it.

It's as simple as that.

Jesus made his life, his life, a gift.

And there's one other place we see Jesus wrapped in cloths.

He took on the garb of the poor, the garb of a slave.

The very next day after that moment, Jesus was arrested, he was uh tried, and then he was executed on a cross.

As he hung there on the cross, he cried out, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

The very people who nailed him to the cross, he's crying out, forgiveness over them.

That's your God, by the way.

And after he breathed his last, his body was taken down off that cross.

And his body was wrapped for burial.

The author of life wrapped lifelessly and laid in a tomb.

The creator was pushed out of his creation onto a cross to mend the brokenness in us and bring wholeness to us.

That he took on the greatest problem, the ultimate problem.

Death.

For you, and for me.

Pastor Timothy Keller wrote this great little book called Hidden Christmas.

And in it he writes, he says, if God had really been born in a manger, then we have something that no other religion even claims to have.

It's a God who truly understands you from the inside of your experience.

There's no other religion that says God has suffered, that God had to be courageous, that he knows what it's like to be abandoned by friends, to be crushed by injustice, to be tortured and died.

Christmas shows he knows what you're going through.

And when you talk to him, he understands.

We talked about gifts and why we wrap them to make them special, that element of surprise and to make it personal.

That wrapped in that manger is the eternity.

It has eternal significance and special.

Surprising the posture that the God of eternity would take for you and for I.

He didn't come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom.

Oh, what a surprise.

And then, even more surprising than all, it was deeply, profoundly, unquestionably personal.

Think about this.

God didn't even just send a prophet to tell you how to get to God, how to find God.

He came to find you and longs to have a personal relationship with every single one of us.

God became gift wrapped for us.

And so let me ask you one more time what if the gift your heart aches for was wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in the manger?

What if it is really true?

What if all the other gifts you've been pursuing and unwrapping the gift of your career, the gift of success, the gift of your family, and wonderful things, what if they're actually all pointing to the ultimate gift?

See, we give gifts at Christmas.

This is where it originated from.

To remind ourselves that God, on the very first Christmas, gave the gift of his son.

He is the ultimate gift.

And when we pass them, here's what the here's the way this tradition began.

When we pass them, as we give gifts to each other, it is to remind ourselves.

These are wonderful and good, and reminds us of the ultimate gift.

The good news that causes great joy for all people.

You know, you know what you do with a gift.

Right.

Kids, what do you do with a gift?

Open it.

Open it.

Yeah.

Here's the reason I ask kids because us adults, we overthink it, right?

You're like, what do we do with a gift?

I don't know.

He's gonna say something.

What am I supposed to say?

I don't know.

I want to be Jesus.

That's the right answer in church.

Okay, I don't know.

You open it.

It's a gift.

That's what you do with gifts.

You can't work for a gift, you can't earn a gift.

All you can do is receive a gift and open it.

That's why the most famous verse in all of scripture, and even if you've never been in church, you're probably familiar with it because you saw it, you know, at a football stadium behind a goalpost somewhere.

John 3, 16.

For God so loved.

Like that's his disposition, his attitude, his outlook on you is one of love, that he looks at you and he loves you.

He doesn't loathe you, he wants you, he chose you, he came for you.

For God so loved you.

And don't you ever forget it, that he gave.

It's a gift, his one and only son.

God for us.

God among us, God with us.

It's personal.

That whoever believes in him or places your trust, places the weight of your life, and earlier in John it says, to those who receive him, a gift do you receive, to those who believe on his name, he gave the right to become children of God, to join the family of God.

Whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

That's not just heaven later, which is wonderful and amazing and true, but it's heaven now.

It's actually heaven invading the spaces of your heart to bring peace and purpose and his very presence into every part of your life to fill that to fill that space, that deeper longing that we keep searching for.

You know, um, the amazing part about the gift of Jesus is unlike Ryder was Santa Claus, where he was standing there waiting, and he walked away empty-handed.

Anyone who turns to Jesus will never walk away empty-handed.

He responds to every single one of us.

And today, maybe you've never received the gift.

Maybe you never knew you had a God who loves you, who's for you, who's wild about you, who loves you and adores you, who's not down on you, who who will take all of you.

And he says, I want to stoop low and bring life and wholeness and peace.

And you just receive him.

Where you just welcome him into your life.

What are you waiting up for?

I want to take just as we close, just a moment to pray and invite you, if you've never started a personal relationship with Jesus, never received the incredible gift, to do that today.

And if you would just pray with me, and just in the quietness of your heart, of your mind, and prayer isn't something mystical, it's just a conversation with God, it's just talking to God.

And I just want to pray, and would you pray after me?

And it's how we receive the gift.

We just put our confidence and trust.

Would you join me?

Heavenly Father, thank you for your love.

Thank you for the gift of your son.

Thank you that you came for me.

That you stooped low for me.

That you want a personal relationship with me, and I want a personal relationship with you.

Today I received the gift.

Jesus, would you come into my life and make me know?

And everyone who calls upon the name of Jesus will be saved.

And heaven ushers in into our heart to fill the empty spaces with his peace and his presence.

In Jesus' name, amen.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

Please subscribe to our podcast for access to every episode as they're uploaded.

And hey, we'd love to connect with you.

Take a next step by filling out our virtual connection card at awakeningchurch.com slash card.