Christmas Chaos with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

Well, Merry Christmas.

I'm so glad you decided to join together as the body of Christ to celebrate Christmas together as we walk into the big day tomorrow.

If you are new with us, my name is Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here at MetaCurch.

We would love to meet you.

We have a connect area in our lobby right out there to the right.

And if it's your first time with us, we have a gift for you or for your family.

So be sure to stop by there after service.

I also want to let you know we have two very exciting Sundays coming up, the next two weeks.

Next Sunday is December 31st.

We started something last year that I think is gonna become a part of our rotation here at MetaCurch.

We realized the strongest way to walk into a new year is with a posture of prayer.

So we will not have regular service times next Sunday.

Instead, the building will be open from 9 a.m.

to noon, and this room will be filled with powerful prayer stations to guide you through praying over yourself, your family, your purpose, our city, and so much more.

You can show up anytime between 9 and noon.

And then the next Sunday, which is January 7th, is our five-year anniversary here at MetaCurch.

Yeah.

It really is incredible all that God has done here in five years, and we really believe He's just getting started.

So we've been in this uh series called Christmas Chaos.

Over the last two weeks, Pastor Noel and Pastor Tony have helped us deal with change and with broken expectations.

Before I get going, can y'all help me thank them for bringing a strong word the last couple of weeks?

I have a short message for us today, but I do think we have to talk about the leading cause of Christmas stress, which is, of course, family tension.

Yeah, don't side out your in-laws right now, right?

That's a bad, that's a bad start.

We have family tension all the time, like that's a 365 problem.

It's just Christmas is this occasion that brings all those family members into the same place.

You have your siblings' new girlfriend that no one can stand, your passive-aggressive uncle, uh, the mom who is still trying to control your life even though you're an adult, or the dad who you wish would show some interest in your life.

Perhaps everyone else is bragging about their kids' academic and athletic achievements, and you're not quite ready to talk about the record your kid set, the most days suspended in one semester, you know.

Not quite ready to throw that out.

We have sibling rivalries, you got split custody with your evil ex that you're dealing with.

You have the random cousin who always shows up high and thinks nobody can notice, but everybody can notice.

You have the grandpa who doesn't realize almost everything they say is like at least a little bit racist, you know?

There are few things as messy as family, and Christmas brings all those people into one house in close proximity for at least one day of the year.

And maybe the way you've always heard the Christmas story, you assume that Jesus had the picture-perfect family.

How could he not?

He was the actual picture-perfect person.

No drama, everyone getting along, no need for Instagram filters, everyone had their eyes open the very first time.

No one ever drank too much eggnog and knocked the stockings into the fire.

Like, it was just perfect.

And we reflect on Christmas with this misguided view at great disadvantage to ourselves.

All series long, we have seen that the first Christmas was messy and confusing and chaotic.

And the beautiful thing is scripture doesn't hide that from us.

While Jesus was on earth, he had a period of spectacular rise in popularity.

And then, when the people realized that he was not interested in wielding political or military power, a pretty significant fall-off happened and many people rejected him.

You would expect, though, that his family would have his back.

They knew Jesus better than anyone else.

If anyone believes in you, it's supposed to be your family.

You might be surprised, though, that not only did his family not have his back, rather, his siblings were some of his very first detractors.

While Jesus was still on the come up when he was widely popular with everyone, his siblings simply did not believe in him.

In Mark 6, it says, Jesus left there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him.

And when the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard were astonished.

Where did this man get these things?

They said.

What is this wisdom that's been given to him?

And how are these miracles performed by his hands?

Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon?

And aren't his sisters here with us?

And so they were offended by him.

And Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his own household.

Jesus' reputation is growing by the day at this point.

He's healing people left and right, he's drawing crazy crowds everywhere he goes, and his family is like not impressed.

John's gospel makes it even more explicit.

In John chapter 7, it says, after this, Jesus traveled in Galilee since he did not want to travel in Judea because the Jews were trying to kill him.

John 7 · chapter mention

And the Jewish festival of shelters was near, and so his brothers said to him, Leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples can see your works that you're doing.

For no one does anything in secret while he's seeking public recognition.

If you do these things, show yourself to the world.

And in verse 5, John does this interesting thing.

He puts in his own parenthesis and says, For not even his brothers believed in him.

And the reason that John inserts that into his manuscript is so you and I know the tone to read that with.

And to understand the tone that his brothers were speaking to him in, you have to picture them using the same tone as Regina George.

And if you don't know who Regina George is, that's fine.

You and I just can't be best friends, okay?

His brothers were being mean girls.

They were like, oh, Jesus, since you're so popular and you're on the come up and you're gonna do so many amazing things, why don't you go do your magic somewhere else so people can see it?

They're mocking him and belittling him because they do not believe in him.

This wasn't the only messy situation that Jesus was plagued with in his family structure.

By the time Jesus started his public ministry, many people don't realize this, but Joseph, his earthly father, had passed away.

And the problem for Jesus was anyone who could do basic math could figure out that Mary was pregnant with him before she was actually married to Joseph.

This is a scandal of epic proportions in this very Orthodox Jewish community.

Jesus is trying to be a rabbi and teach others how to live when hypothetically he himself was conceived in sin.

So to get a little setup to what's about to happen in John chapter 8, some of the Jewish crowd has turned on Jesus and they're having an argument that they don't need Jesus in his teachings since they're descended from Abraham.

John 8 · chapter mention

And Jesus told them, although they are physically descendants of Abraham, they're not living how God asked Abraham to live.

And to put it mildly, they did not like that.

And that's when they dropped this little gem in John 8, 41.

They said to Jesus, Well, at least we weren't born of sexual immorality, they said.

We only have one father, God.

This is a huge crowd of people directly talking about Jesus' mama.

I'm a nice guy, my mom's here.

Don't talk about my mama, you know?

I'm a nice guy, but don't talk about my mama.

What they're saying about Jesus cuts straight to the heart of the drama that followed him specifically because of his family structure.

There's this great verse in the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, and it says that we have a God who understands the full human experience.

We do not have a distant, unconcerned God.

We have a Savior who came right down into the messiness of this world and experienced all of the things that we go through, which means if you have a messy family situation, if you have some tension with someone in your household, Jesus knows exactly what that is like.

Here's the craziest part.

Jesus had family drama going way back, not just during his time on earth, but even his family tree was wild.

Matthew records the genealogy of Jesus, and in doing so, he dramatically breaks with the way genealogies were recorded in the ancient world.

These are the parts of the Bible, the genealogies, where it's a bunch of names you don't know how to pronounce, and you kind of ask forgiveness as you skip that in your daily Bible reading, you know?

Here's how it starts: an account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Abraham fathered Isaac, and Isaac fathered Jacob, and Jacob fathered Judah and his brothers.

It goes on like that for 42 generations of difficult names, okay?

And then in verse 16, it finishes and Jacob fathered Joseph, the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, who is called the Messiah.

Now I get that these are easy chapters to skip, but even in the genealogies, there's a depth of wisdom and instruction for us.

And I want to point out the moves that make Matthew's genealogy set apart from any other that you can find in the ancient world.

I'm gonna pick out a few parts of it.

It says, Judah fathered Perez and Zerah by Tamar.

And then it says, Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth, and Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered King David.

And David fathered Solomon by Bathsheba, who was Uriah's wife, and Jacob fathered Joseph, the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus.

Now we read right by this in our 21st century lens.

The lineage of Jesus, it does a couple of things.

It goes to great lengths to show how he is connected to the lineage of Abraham, the founder of the nation.

It goes to great lengths to show how he is related to King David, the heritage that leads to the throne.

But it also does something that no one else would dare to do.

Matthew includes women in the genealogy.

I know, right?

What is he thinking?

Women in the genealogy.

Now, here's why women never made the genealogy.

Because at that place and at that time, very different than today, lineage passed exclusively through the males.

Women were never put in the genealogy.

And not only are there women in the genealogy, which you will struggle to find anywhere in the ancient world, he also includes women who were Gentiles, meaning they were non-Jewish.

And at that place in that time, that was not seen as a bonus, bringing diversity to your family.

It was seen as a defect in your lineage.

And Matthew intentionally draws these women out and puts them in the line of Jesus, and he does it on purpose.

Now, not only are they women, and not only are they foreigners, but several of them are highly controversial.

We not only looked at the controversy that followed Mary throughout her life, we're gonna take a brief look at others.

You've probably heard of Bathsheba.

She's the woman who had an affair with King David while her husband was away at war.

Ruth was a Moabite, a foreigner who left her people to support her mother-in-law, Naomi.

She was a stranger in the land and she pursued her future husband, Boaz.

Rahab was a Canaanite, another Gentile.

And not only was she a Canaanite, she lived in the stronghold of Jericho, where she ran the brothel in town.

And then there's Tamar, and I wrote my whole sermon and then remembered there's no Medicids and there's gonna be kids in this service.

I can't even tell you the story of Tamar.

Tamar's story is heartbreaking.

She was a woman treated as bad as a woman could be treated, and went to great lengths to expose her absolutely evil father-in-law.

Tamar's story is wild.

And Matthew adds it right along with the great patriarchs in the genealogy of Jesus.

If you have family drama this Christmas, I promise you Jesus gets it.

And scripture does not try to paint over or whitewash the reality of what happened when Jesus came.

He came to a broken world full of broken people, and he stepped right into it as the light of the world, called us to himself so that we could join with him in spreading that light.

Amen.

So what do we do with our own family drama this year?

First, I believe Jesus' story shows us we need to shift our perspective.

While this seems quite basic, it is true nonetheless.

The fact that you have family drama, don't miss this, the fact that you have family drama is rooted in the fact that you have a family.

I'm an adoptive dad.

Katie, my wife, she works closely with a foster and orphan crisis here in San Antonio.

And I can promise you this a messy, crazy, attention-filled family is better than no family at all.

And just starting with a shift in our perspective, a shift towards gratitude for who you have could make all the difference in the world as we walk into Christmas this year.

Second, I believe you need to shift your posture.

You can't change how rude your cousin is, how drunk your aunt will get, how terribly behaved your siblings' kids are.

You can't control any of that.

But you can control how you walk into the room, how you use your words with your family members.

You can control whether or not you join into the gossip or how loving you are to your parents, whether or not you think they've deserved it this year.

What your Christmas might need to make it the best one yet is you showing up with the right perspective and the right posture.

And last, we need to shift our priorities.

Instead of focusing on what we're hoping to get out of Christmas this year, start by focusing on what you can give to your family.

You see, there was no benefit to Jesus to step out of perfection and down into our brokenness.

All it was going to do was cost him all the way to the cross.

He did not come to see what he could get out of the world.

He came to give his life for the world.

And if you are a believer in Jesus as well, then you know that God created you on purpose and he has instilled a purpose inside of you.

And we are called to be bright light in a world that seems to be getting darker by the day.

The access that you get once a year to your family exists for you to shine a bright gospel light as evidence of what Jesus is doing in your life.

Jesus didn't hide his messy family from the world.

He wasn't ashamed of them.

He trusted God.

He had the right perspective, the right posture, the right priorities.

And it's why we come together and we celebrate Christmas.

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, we love you.

We thank you for your great love for us.

We thank you for coming down to this world, for showing us what it looks like to approach this season with the right perspective.

I pray we would step into tomorrow with gratitude.

Even if we have a messy, tension-filled family, you've given us a family, a place to belong.

I pray we would have the right posture.

We'd spend time with you, reflecting on you, Jesus, preparing us to walk in, carrying ourselves the right way, using our words the right way, loving the right way, forgiving the right way.

I pray that we would have the right priorities, your priorities.

To love as you have loved us.

And we pray it all in your name, Jesus.

Amen.

So we have a tradition here every year that we've gotten to do Christmas Eve service.

We close with Silent Night, great classic song.

We're gonna have some volunteers and staff walking down.

What's gonna happen is at the end of the row, we're gonna light your candle and you're gonna pass the flame on.

This is what started Christmas 2,000 years ago.

The light of the world came and spread the light to each and every one of us.

And so you guys can go ahead with the lighters and start passing the light on up.

And we invite you to stand and to join us as we sing.

A few things before you leave.

Next Sunday, no regular service times.

The building's open from 9 to noon for you to come and pray for 2024.

I really hope you'll join us for that.

And then in two Sundays, we have our five-year anniversary.

Last thing, as you blow your candles out on your way out, please recycle them.

There's a couple of boxes out there for the next services coming in.

So blow your candle out, let it cool for a second, throw it in a box on your way out.

MetaCurch, Merry Christmas.

We hope to see you next Sunday.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

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Man, I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.