Christmas Eve with Pastor Clayton

Welcome to the MetaCurch podcast.

My name is Clayton.

I'm the pastor at MetaCurch, and I hope that today's message is inspiring and enlightening and really builds you up wherever you're at in life.

I want to welcome you in and I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas.

MetaCurch, how are we doing?

You guys good?

Good.

If you're new with us, my name is Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here at MetaCurch.

It is so good to be back preaching at MetaCurch.

I am so excited.

Before I get into the word, I need you to help me thank a couple of people who have held it down the last few Sundays.

First, I want to thank Andrew Richardson.

Uh, Pastor Andrew came over from his ministry at City Church, blessed us two weeks ago.

Please thank him for that.

Two out of the last three Sundays, you have heard from our very own pastor Tony Albano.

I cannot put into words how much his leadership means to me and to the movement here at MetaCurch.

If you don't know, Pastor Tony is our fearless, fearless leader in our Holodus venue.

He does so much behind the scenes.

You guys don't even understand.

He brought strong, strong messages.

Two of the last three weeks.

Please help me thank Pastor Tony.

Honor him.

Now it is Christmas Eve.

Tomorrow morning, uh we walk into our family traditions, we walk into opening presents, and here's our job today.

We live in a culture and even a Christian culture here in America, where by December 24th, we are about 90% Santa Claus and about 10% Jesus Christ.

Am I tripping or is that about where we land on December 24th?

And our job is to stop, to reorient our minds, to reorient our hearts, and to keep it 100% Jesus going into tomorrow, because he deserves all of the praise.

Say amen if you agree with that.

Now, I'm gonna take a little bit of an unconventional approach.

We are going to look at Eve, but not necessarily Christmas Eve.

We're gonna anchor ourselves somewhere else in the text.

Typically, you come to a Christmas Eve service, uh, you wanna get into the first couple of chapters of one of the gospel, you wanna do Nativity, you wanna do Bethlehem, Manger, Baby Jesus, Joseph Mary, throw in some shepherds, maybe some wise men, right?

That's not where we're going today.

We'll get there, but we're anchoring ourselves at a different Eve, not Christmas Eve, but Calvary Eve.

Not the night before his birth, the night before his death.

And I'm gonna give you where I'm going with this up front, because I have to be quick.

I love Christmas Eve because it's a family service, which means I get to look out uh not just at all the beautiful teenage and adult faces, but we get to see our little ones in here as a church family.

And I love that, but I also, as someone with somewhat severe ADD, I know these kids' attention span, right?

So I don't get three hours to preach today.

I gotta move kind of fast.

And I want to let you know where I'm going so that we can go there together.

Uh, where I'm going today is you cannot understand Christmas, and you cannot fully appreciate Christmas if you don't understand how it connects to the cross.

And a lot of times we focus all our attention just on baby Jesus right here, but baby Jesus showed up for a purpose.

Jesus is different than us in a lot of ways.

Here's a key way that we're gonna understand today.

You were born to live.

When your mother brought you into this world, or however you tell your kids, babies, when the stork showed up and brought you into whatever lies we're telling our kids these.

I'm not gonna do the whole birds and bees.

That's not why I'm here today.

But you got here however you got here, because kids are in the service, and you got here to live.

We've got a lot of parents here at MetaCurch, and when you think about your kids, you think about how they're going to live.

My kids are getting older, 13, 16, 21, starting their lives.

Some of you have little kids.

You think about who they're gonna be, what sports are they gonna play, what are what extracurriculars, who are they gonna be academically, who are they gonna be relationally, will they be introvert, extrovert?

Who will they date, fall in love with, get engaged to, marry?

Will they have kids?

What will their careers be?

We think about our kids when we bring them into this world, we bring them in to live.

Every one of us was born to live.

Not Jesus, Jesus was born to die.

For us, death is a bug, not a feature.

It's like we know it's coming, but that's not why we're here.

We're here to live.

Jesus showed up in Bethlehem in a manger for a mission that ended on a cross, and I say it all the time because I need to get it in your head so it will get to your heart.

That the cross was not a detour in the plan of God.

The cross was always the destination.

And you can't fully understand Christmas if you don't understand the cross, and furthermore, you can't really understand the cross if you don't understand Christmas.

And so we're gonna put all this together.

We're gonna look not at Christmas Eve, but at Calvary's Eve, the night before Jesus died.

He gathered in the upper room with his closest followers, and they shared one last meal.

And when the meal was laid out, Jesus took over as the master of ceremonies.

Here's what he says in Luke chapter 22.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

When the hour came, Jesus reclined at the table, and the apostles with him, and he said to them, I fervently desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

And he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he said, Take this and share it among yourself.

For I tell you, from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.

Here it is.

And he took bread and he gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them.

And Jesus said, This bread is my body, which is given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

And in the same way he took the cup after supper, and he said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

Now we're in Luke chapter 22.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

We're also gonna go to the nativity in Luke chapter 2.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

If you're new with us, you don't know this, but we've been going through Luke this year, verse by verse.

It took us 26 weeks to get through three and a half chapters of Luke.

We are going slow.

And if you've been here, what you have learned in part is that the word of God is deeper than you can possibly imagine.

Do you agree with that?

That the more you dig, the more you realize how infinitely deep it is, that it is more robust than you could possibly imagine.

And the reason we are going to Calvary's Eve is because I need you to see something.

That every moment and every movement of God is on purpose, that it is a plan that has been executed since the beginning of time, and that at the end of that plan it is pointing at you.

Not you generally, where you can dismiss yourself and say, Oh, he probably means all of the religious people around me, all of the good people around me, all of the non-divorced people around me, all of the non-dependent people around me, all of the non-alcoholics around me, all the non-cheaters around me.

No, when I say you, I mean you.

That God has put this plan into place before the foundation of the world because he desires a relationship with every single one of you.

I want to show you the consistencies in this story.

There are two primary elements here.

We have the bread, which Jesus tells us is his body.

And then we have the wine.

Now, scripture says the cup filled with the fruit of the vine.

I grew up Baptist, so we had to pretend this was Welch's grape juice, okay?

It was nuts.

He was drinking wine that night.

I don't know if it was a Merlot, a cab, a Syrah, I don't know, but it was wine.

And the wine he says represents his blood.

We have two elements: the bread and the wine.

And what I need you to see, if I had three hours with you, we could pull this thread for three hours, and you could see just how monumental the plan and the consistency of God is.

I don't have three hours because an hour in you would leave, right?

I've got like 20 minutes.

So I'm gonna hit the highlights here because I need you to see that God has a plan, and that plan is pointing at you.

A desire to be in relationship with you, two elements.

And I want to show you how they draw out all through the life of Jesus.

The first element is the bread.

Let's go.

We were in Luke 22.

Let's go to Luke 2.

Finally, Christmas Eve, we get to the nativity, right?

Luke chapter 2, verse 1.

Luke 2:1

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole empire should be registered.

The first registration took place while Corinius was governing Syria.

And so everyone went to be registered, each to his own town.

Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David, which is called, say it with me, Bethlehem, because he was of the house in the family line of David.

Now, at this point, you're like, Pastor, bro, we know this part of the story.

Mary's pregnant, she's got to ride a camel, they gotta go a long way, and they end up in Bethlehem.

But I'm telling you, there were two elements the bread and the wine.

You know he's born in Bethlehem, but I want to give you a little bit of context.

When Jesus was on earth, they spoke the language Aramaic, they wrote in the language Greek.

However, when Israel was established, the dominant language was not Aramaic, it was not Greek, it was Hebrew.

These towns have Hebrew names.

Bethlehem is a Hebrew name, Bethlehem.

Did you know that Jesus who said, This bread is my body that is broken for you?

There is no salvation.

Apart from it, there's no redemption, apart from it, there's no forgiveness of sins, apart from it.

Jesus, who 33 years earlier was born in Bethlehem, that that city prophesied 500 years in advance to be the birthplace of the Savior, that Bethlehem translates the house of bread.

Beth, the house of Lahem of bread.

There is more because Jesus is born in Luke 2, verse 6.

Luke 2:6

While they were there, the time came for her to give birth.

And she gave birth to her firstborn son.

She wrapped him tightly in cloth, she laid him, say it with me, in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

We know this, Pastor.

Oh way in a manger.

We know this.

But we don't stop and slow down.

This is what we've done in Luke for 26 weeks.

We've just slowed down a little bit.

Because Jesus, who is the bread of life, who on the eve of his crucifixion broke the bread and said, This is my body, it will be broken for you.

It's sad, but on that Friday that his body was broken, we call it a good Friday because it is through the breaking of his body and the spilling of his blood that every one of us has an opportunity to come back into relationship with our Heavenly Father.

He's born in the house of bread, and he is laid in a manger, which, if you don't know, is just a fancy name for a feeding trough.

The very one who would come and break his body for us.

The bread of life was laid in a feeding trough.

The symbolism is everywhere, and it jumps off of the page at us.

Let me break it down like this.

In the upper room, the night before his crucifixion, he breaks the bread and offers us his body.

The next day on the cross, he actually physically breaks his body for us.

He tells us at communion, a sacrament for believers in Jesus, that we are to remember his body.

But here's why we have to connect Calvary and Christmas.

Because it is in Bethlehem He receives his body.

It is in Bethlehem that he bridges the chasm between a perfect heaven and a broken earth.

Luke 22 is the night before he dies.

His earthly ministry is coming to a close.

But early in his ministry, there was a moment where Jesus showed up.

You might have heard of this.

We call it the feeding of the 5,000.

There were likely over 20,000 people in attendance.

Jesus feeds all of them with like an extra value meal.

You know, he just divides it and divides it.

Everybody eats.

We tell that story, but we don't tell what comes next.

In the next chapter, the same crowd comes and finds Jesus.

Why?

They're like, Jesus, we want some more of that teaching.

We want some more conviction.

We want you to challenge us some more.

No, of course not.

They show up for a free meal.

Jesus, do that thing again.

Divide the stuff.

Oh, actually, we got it on lock this time.

We brought red lobster cheddar bay biscuits.

Divide those bad boys up, Jesus.

Let's feast.

And you know what Jesus says?

No.

He says, you guys are coming to me and you're missing the entire point.

He's like, Look, if if you need bread, I rained bread from heaven when you were in the wilderness.

We called it manna.

You don't need more bread.

What is he saying?

He's saying, You do not need more things of this world to temporarily satisfy you.

Here's what Jesus says in John chapter 6, verse 35.

John 6:35

Jesus says, I am the bread of life.

No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever thirst again.

You need to know this.

MetaCurch was built, it was founded seven years ago to be a community where all people at all parts of their faith journey can come, which means there are a lot of people at MetaCurch who are a part of this movement who have not crossed the line of faith.

They're not yet convinced by the claims of Christianity, but they're here and you belong here and you're loved here, and you're wrestling and you're seeking God.

And I believe that God will find you and make you new.

But if that is you and you are not yet a believer, here's something I know about you.

There is a longing at the most core part of who you are.

What we know is that is your soul.

Here's something I know.

The world will promise you all kinds of things to fill that longing inside of you, and you will fall for many of those sales pitches.

And the further you go down that path, the emptier you will become.

And there are so many of us who are in this movement who spent so much of our life, and we thought, if I can get more money, if I can get more leverage, if I can get more power, if I can get more influence, if I can increase in my career, if I can get more relationships, if I can get more people into bed, if I can get a little more drunk a little more often, a little higher a little more often.

We go down all the paths trying to fill this longing inside of us, eating the bread of our culture only to be hungrier the next day, only for that appetite to increase.

And there are too many people to ignore at MetaCurch who finally surrendered themselves, found the bread of life, and allowed Jesus to satisfy them once and for all.

If that's you, say amen.

If Jesus has satisfied you, look, if you're not a believer, you need to know this.

All those amens are testimonies, and I can tell you this: I'm their pastor.

These are not perfect people, these are not people with all of the answers, these are not people with it all figured out, and neither am I.

But we have found the one who can fill the longing of our souls, and maybe today so can you.

He is the bread of life that was broken for us.

He was broken so you could be made whole.

There are two elements.

There is the bread, Jesus, the bread of life, born in the house of bread, laid in a manger.

Do not miss the symbolism.

And there is the wine, and the wine represents his blood.

And I want us to pay very careful attention.

This is what we do at Meta.

We are not geniuses, we're not rocket scientists.

I don't even have the right degrees hanging on the wall to probably be in this position, but I know how to slow down.

And you do too.

So let's slow down.

Luke 22, 20.

Jesus says, in the same way, he took the cup after supper.

Listen to what he said.

He doesn't just say, This cup is my blood, like he did, the bread is my body.

He said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

The new covenant.

Jesus is inaugurating a new covenant, which helped me, implies it is replacing the what?

The old covenant.

We know about this old covenant.

It is the law that Israel lived under, a strict and demanding law in the Old Testament.

Some of you have run into people who are still trying to live out this old covenant.

Anyone who's ever told you you're going to hell because of your tattoos is living in the old covenant.

Anyone who has ever questioned your salvation because you like bacon on your breakfast taco.

I heard an amen for bacon.

That's my boy right there.

Like, we could be friends, bro.

This is an old covenant.

And here's what we know: that Jesus came, and his sacrifice on the cross paid the price of your sin that separates you from your heavenly father.

Amen for that.

Here's what we miss that his sacrifice on the cross also paid the price to fulfill the old covenant.

So we no longer live under that law, we live under grace.

And I promise you, friends, you would rather live under the grace of God than the strictures of the old covenant law.

Do you agree with that?

Here's what we miss because we don't connect Calvary and Christmas.

Here's what we miss.

We know the story of the last time Jesus shed his blood.

It was on a cross we call Calvary.

We know the story of the last time Jesus shed his blood.

Most of us miss the story of the first time Jesus shed his blood.

Can I show it to you?

It is also in Luke chapter 2.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

Verse 21 says, When the eight days were completed for his circumcision, hold that thought.

He was named Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived.

In the old covenant, you entered that covenant through a sign, and that sign was circumcision.

This is still a part of the nativity.

Jesus is eight days old, and on his eighth day, he enters the sign of the covenant through the very first shedding of his blood and circumcision.

I want you to listen to the next verses.

Every time you hear the law, you can think the old covenant.

Let's look.

And when the days of their purification, according to the law of Moses, old covenant, was finished.

They brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.

Just as it is written in the law, old covenant, every firstborn male will be dedicated to the Lord, and to offer a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law, old covenant, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons.

Here's what you have to understand: the reason we are free from the old covenant and we enter into the new covenant of grace through faith is yes, because of Jesus shedding his blood on the cross.

But Jesus could not fulfill the old covenant if he had not entered into it the first time he shed his blood.

Christmas is inextricably connected to Calvary.

Jesus at his birth entered into the old covenant.

In his life, he perfectly fulfilled the old covenant.

In his death, he paid the price of the old and inaugurated the new.

And pay attention.

At his resurrection, he made way to offer you access to that new covenant in his name.

If you don't have a relationship with Jesus, you need to know this.

Many of you have been lied to about what Christianity actually offers.

Jesus did not walk out of his own grave, offering you an opportunity to sign up to a religion.

Jesus came out of that grave offering you a relationship with your heavenly Father.

Scripture tells us we enter into this new covenant not by works, not by law-keeping, not by circumcision of our bodies.

We enter into it one way by faith in Jesus Christ.

Believing in our hearts that He is who he claims to be and that He has done what He claims to have accomplished.

And when you put your faith in Jesus, all of your sins are forgiven because of the work of Christmas and Calvary.

You are adopted by your heavenly Father because of Christmas and Calvary, and you are given everlasting life because of Christmas and Calvary.

Paul explained this to the Galatians.

He said it like this: When the time came to completion, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons and as daughters of God.

That deep longing at the core of who you are, it is not longing for wealth, it is not longing for status, it is not longing for power, it is not longing for addiction.

It is longing for a relationship with your Heavenly Father.

On offer to you by the bread of life who came down at Christmas and paid for our sins at Calvary.

Here's where I want us to end.

In just a little while, we're gonna take communion.

This is a sacrament for believers.

Let me explain something because Metachurch is a church for all people, all parts of their faith journey.

Let me say it simply: the services of the local church are for all people, believer or unbeliever.

The sacraments of the church are for believers.

Communion is for believers, baptism is for believers.

Now, some of you, the Holy Spirit is already pressing in on your heart, calling you into a relationship with your Heavenly Father.

My strong advice for you is to surrender, put your faith in Jesus, and walk into Christmas as a brand new born-again believer.

For all of us, here's what Jesus asks of us.

He asks us to take communion in remembrance of him.

Now, here's what we believe.

Every single word of scripture is intentional.

We do believe that at Metachurch.

And the word remembrance is not the Greek word that means to recall something mentally, to remember facts.

This is a specific word that is used in the context of Old Testament sacrifices.

Here's the idea.

When you would come to temple and you would bring your sacrifice to the Lord, as the animal was sacrificed, you would relive, re-experience, and actually re-participate in the saving act of God.

When Jesus says, when you take communion, when you take the bread, when you take the drink, when we do this in remembrance, it's not mental fact recalling.

It's deeper, it's holier.

In fact, we believe it is supernatural.

Here's what Jesus is asking.

Jesus is asking us to participate in the story of his life.

Jesus instituted communion on Calvary Eve the night before he died.

But what did he actually ask?

He said, Do this in remembrance of me.

Not just to remember the cross, not just to remember the grave.

Because you can't actually understand Calvary if you don't understand Christmas.

And as we walk into December 25th, you cannot accurately understand Christmas if you do not see it in light of Calvary.

And so when we take communion together, I'm going to ask for you to pause, to be still, to be prayerful, and to do this in remembrance, to try and set yourself in the life of Jesus and actually experience anew what it is that He did for you.

However, before we do that, some of you in this room are not yet believers, but the Holy Spirit has gripped your heart.

Some of you in Helotus, some of you online, you might not be believers, but the Holy Spirit is working on you.

So we're going to give you a chance to respond.

And if you are ready to respond in faith for the first time, then after your response, we will take communion.

And for the first time, you will receive communion as a believer as well.

Here's what I want to do right where you're sitting, just bow your head and close your eyes.

There's nothing magic about that.

We're just creating a little bit of space.

If you're here at one of our venues, if you're with us online, and you've never had a moment in time where you have put your faith in Jesus.

You've come to the end of yourself, you've realized there is nothing in this world that can hold the weight of my hope, then we are going to ask you right now, in this moment, to make the decision, convinced in your mind, convicted in your heart that Jesus is your only hope for this life and for what comes after this life.

If that's you, with every eye closed, I want to ask you right now to just simply raise your hand.

By raising your hand, this is a symbolic gesture that says, Today I choose to put my faith in Jesus.

Praise God.

Praise God.

Every hand going up, I need you to know this.

Scripture tells us with confidence that God sees and accepts your faith right now, forgives all of your sins, past, present, and future right now, adopts you into his family right now, and has given you everlasting life.

A gift that no one and nothing can take away from you.

You might have the greatest gift of your lifetime sitting under the tree tomorrow.

It pales in comparison to the gift of God you just received right now.

For those who raised a hand, all I want to do is very simply help you acknowledge this moment through a prayer.

And I'm gonna ask every believer at Metachurch to pray this out loud as well.

Let's pray like this.

Jesus, today I choose to put my faith in you.

I believe you are God that you died for my sins and rose from the grave.

I thank you for loving me and forgiving my sins.

So glad you joined us for today's message.

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