DEC 25 2016

Sea Change Church · Adam Stadtmiller · December 25, 2016
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem.

Because he was of the house and the family of David in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was with child. While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son. And she wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

In the same region, there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid. For behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all the people.

For today, in the city of David, there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased.

This is the reading of the scripture. Thanks be to God. Amen. Thank you, Carol. Carol is our office manager and does a great job. If you don't know her, get to know her as well. Well, bless you on this Christmas morning. And I don't know what, what was your best present? Can I hear everybody? I don't, don't say best present because maybe somebody else didn't get you at.

What was one of your best presents? Come on, let me hear it. Anyone? Anyone? A new clothes right on. Some guys like a lawn blower. No. What do you got? Lori. What'd you get? Gary's not working at the fire. Oh, he's off on the fire station. What a gift. That's a good one. Anybody else? Anybody else? What'd you, what'd you get? I got a big drone and a little drone.

You got double droned? No way. My kids got drones too. That's awesome. What'd you get? I got a Furby connect. Yeah. Furby connect. You didn't even know that's a little, don't get one for your kid. Trust me. All day long. All day long. What'd you get? I got a Wallace. What's that? A stuffed animal. Whoa. I had a stuffed animal. It was called Monk. And I wore all the fur off of him when I was a kid.

Oh, that's so cool. Well, you want to know what made me really happy? About three weeks ago, I asked my wife. I'm like, what do you want? She said, I want a bow and arrow. I was like, yeah. That is so awesome. I love when my wife goes medieval. You know what I'm saying? So I went to performance archery and got her a long bow and some carbon arrows.

And I just think it's so awesome. Like, I think she's part elven, you know, from Lord of the Rings. So really cool. I got her that. So that was by the thing today. And we're going to go shoot today. There's a range by our house, aren't we? So pretty awesome. Anybody else's wife asked for a bow and arrow? Didn't think so. Okay. This is what I asked for.

Boom, shakalaka. That's it. Okay. I don't know about you, but I've turned my office into a little museum. Okay. So old boy is going to go. He's going to go regulate. Sorry, I better put that down. And so this is a storm trooper. And I got him. I don't know if you know, there's a new movie that came out called Rogue One. Actually, somebody will get mad if I put him over by Jesus.

Okay. I'm going to put him here. I really want to put him over here by Jesus. Like, just looking on down at Jesus like that. But somebody will get mad, and I'll get an email tomorrow. So we're just going to put him here like an usher. There he goes. His gun's not pointed. Okay. Dropped my notes. Don't know if you know there's a new movie out called Rogue One.

I'm not going to see it. There are no other Star Wars for me after the first three. I don't know who's related to whom. I just can't figure it out. Like, I even talked to Star Wars people. They can't even figure out what. Is anybody else lost on what's happening? Like, what movie was it? Anybody know? Six, two, nine, four? I mean, seven? Seven, three and a half?

Yeah, exactly. It's like Levitical law. Like, I can't figure it out, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Cool thing I know about the first three movies. Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back. That's the best one, by the way. And Return of the Jedi. Thank you, Lily. Lucy, I'll be here all week. You can preach when you grow up. That's my daughter, by the way. The thing that I think makes those movies so intriguing is what they're about.

And ultimately, those first three movies, the trilogy, the only one that matters, it's not so much about the stars. It's not so much, in my opinion, about the Force. It's not so much about Yoda and creatures and things. Really, it's about a relationship between a father and his son. And that's how I see it, at least. And a father whose relationship goes wrong.

And then there's a redemptive story. Some of the best stories we ever hear are stories of redemption. And while the Luke and Darth Vader saga is not a story which perfectly mirrors the relationship of God the Father, Jesus his son, and a lost mankind, which is us, it does have some notes and some themes that we can resonate with. And I think probably, they say that there's only seven, I think they say there's seven or eight storylines that exist in all stories ever told.

And one of those is the lost that come home. One of those is a redemption story. But it is that nature of the redemption of relationship that I think captures me, at least, in that story. Probably Christmas highlights relationships like a few other holidays, correct? It highlights some of the best relationships you have, some of the ones you hold most dear.

And at the same time, it can also open up some difficult relationships as well, difficult days. And maybe you understand that or you've experienced that. I know in our family we have as well. And we've had to fight to have relationships often be the kind of relationships that we want. We have a story here of God's story of redemption. You have the Father, some pretty basic characters.

You have the Father and you have a Son. And then you have the children of God, which is mankind, who decided to remove themselves from relationship with God. That's the story of the Bible. It's a very simple story. The story is that mankind decided that having God as their Father was not good enough for them. And so like the devil, as it says, or the enemy before them, made a decision to say, we don't want to be the children of God.

We want to be like God. And if you read in the book of Genesis, it says that the original temptation is if you follow this temptation, you can be like God. And if you look at society today, it is continuing to want to be like God, to make the decisions God makes, and to put themselves, as opposed to under the rule of God, above God. And so we have a faith that says we want to be children of God.

And like children, we want to put ourselves in submission, not just to the rule of God, because it's so easy to cast Christianity, to paint this mosaic of Christianity as a faith of rules, when really it's a faith about a father. It's a faith about a father who wants to love his children. I've got to say my children are in the service today, and our relationship is not all about rules, but we sure have some rules, like Lily has to clean the kitchen on a regular basis.

And she tells me, you know, it's funny, she starts telling me all the time, can you at least do your own dishes, put them away when you're done? I'm like, absolutely not. You get an allowance, and you don't get, well, mom's in charge of giving you your allowance. It's not my fault. But it's not about rules. It's about relationship. It's about hanging out.

It's about fun. It's about doing these things. This is what the story of Christmas is about. The story about Christmas is about a father who wants his kids back. And if you heard the song today, and I don't know if you actually look at the words that we sing, but it says that he did not want heaven without us. That's the deal. That God doesn't want heaven without us, and he wants to be in relationship from you.

He wants us to come home. So there's just four quick things that I'm going to hit in this scripture today before we go have our British porridge and celebrate Boxing Day tomorrow, as a matter of fact. No one even knows what that is. Here's the four points. First is this. I think it's interesting in this scripture whom he came to to announce that the Messiah was coming.

Shepherds. Interesting. Shepherds. You know, God has a thing for shepherds. I don't know if you've seen that in the scripture, but if you look at David, David, which says, you know, just had this love for God and was loved by God, was a shepherd. God loves the humble. God loves the contrite. That's the first one. Interesting. My question is, if you were going to make a big announcement, your Facebook campaign, or you have a new book coming out, or your new business, or whatever that thing is that you are going to announce, where do you go to announce it?

Do you go to shepherds in a field? Absolutely not. But, you know, the kingdom agenda, the world, the kingdom world, it's so contrary. It's so upside down compared to the world and the way that they would roll out the coming of the Messiah. The rollout of the coming of the Messiah was to the humble, was to the meek. That's the first. Second point is this.

The reaction of those who came. He came and sent an angel to tell these humble people, these humble men who were taking watch by night, that the Messiah was coming and they had a reaction of fear. It was great news, but they had a reaction of fear. And I have to say this, is that I am oftentimes too tempted to slip into a fear mode with God. To begin to see God as someone who's mad at me, someone who wants to get me, someone who's keeping track of all the littlest sins that I do, who wants to reject me, who's not going to bless me because I messed up.

Detoxifying myself from a draconian or I would say a rule-type based God to a God who loves me, who says you're my son and you're my beloved, has been one of the biggest adventures of my life. And let me challenge you with this. If you spend the rest of your life diving in and experiencing yourself as the beloved of God, it would not be an unworthy pursuit.

I recently saw The Last Samurai and I don't know if you saw that movie. I really like that movie. I really do. I like Tom Cruise. I'm going to admit it. I like his movies, okay? No one else wants to admit it. I like Tom Cruise a lot. And I saw, there, I said it. I feel better. It's off me. I like him. Let's see. He might be one of my favorite actors now that I think about it.

He's got a lot of good movies. If he just did Top Gun and tapped out, it would have been enough. The Last Samurai, the man that he's dealing with there, the man who was in charge of all the other samurai, I forgot what his name was, but he said if I were just to spend a life contemplating a lotus blossom, it would be a worthy life. Well, I don't know if that's true, but what I do know is if you spend your entire life diving into your belovedness, waking up every morning and saying, I'm a beloved of God, that God loves me and I'm his child, it would be a life well spent.

Some people have spent their lives doing that. Number three, I think the third thing is how he came. He came as a baby. And the fourth thing we'll get into is what he brought. Let's look quickly at verse eight with number one. It says, In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night.

I don't think any word is in the Bible by mistake. I think it all has a meaning. And when it says that there were shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night, it was meant to be. The book of John is all about light and darkness. And I preached to the book of John a couple years ago. And it talks about light coming into the world. I don't know if you feel that the world is dark, but with all the media we have, the amount of darkness we see is greater than has ever been seen before.

I don't think the world is more evil than it's ever been. I've tried to study history and you look at some very evil times in the world. So I'm not going to say that. But let me say our exposure to its darkness, the click bait that you have when Facebook comes up or whatever, to click into the most mundane, not only mundane, but the base of all human emotions is right there at your fingertips.

To see the worst things that happen. But I see things being advertised in normal newspapers that you would be appalled. You don't even want to speak about. You know, the scripture actually has a verse that says, we shouldn't even speak about the things that happen, that people do, it says, in the deeds of darkness. But yet we just promote it now, you know, for one reason or another.

I want to say that we live in a very dark time. It might not be the darkest time. But in the midst of that, I think this verse has something to say to us. God's keeping watch over his flock. It says that he's keeping watch over their flock. And I want to bring this, we always want to bring the message at this church to give you handholds that you can take home and it makes a difference in your personal life.

And that message is this, is that in the darkest parts of your life, he's there with you. He's there with you, watching over you, and watching over you, his tender lamb by night. I want to say, if you have felt alienated from that, begin to ask God to reveal his love to you. I would say that is a great prayer. You want to know a prayer to pray for this year?

Get up in the morning and say, God, reveal your love to me. Reveal your love to me every day. I began to ask God to reveal his love for me. And I tell you what, I never was able to love people until I know how much God loved me. And I'm still on a journey to learn how to love people more. I got to say, my ability to love people ebbs and flows like the tide.

I don't know if you're like that. There's some people I know that you're just lovers. You're always loving, but I kind of ebb and flow. But the more I'm in touch with my belovedness, that God came to me and that he would want me. I want to say, here's the second thing I want you to know from this one point. He came to shepherds. The kingdom culture of heaven is not a culture of celebrity.

God doesn't need celebrities. He's not, he loves celebrities, but he's not looking for them. When Jesus came, he didn't go pick the star Pharisees to follow him around. He was humble. He came and it says that he revealed himself to shepherds. And here's the point for you to take home. Have you sometimes maybe, I think the word I want to say is disqualified yourself because you're not quite what you think you should be.

You've painted a picture of who you should be. You've painted a picture of what you should look like, what you should have done by now, what you shouldn't have done by now. And you set up this bar and God doesn't even look at that bar. It's not the way that he judges things. It's not the judgment he makes. And he's looking and saying, you know, it's not about celebrity.

It's not about position. It's not about power. I have all of that. It's about you and it's about hearts and I want your heart. That's the only thing he wants is our hearts. I want to say if you've disqualified yourself for one reason or another, a big sin because you don't believe or your faith is weak, I want to say don't disqualify yourself. I had a person come in this week and they said, you know, I don't follow Jesus, but, and I don't know if he died for my sins.

I don't know if I believe all that but there's something about this church that I like. It's about the fourth conversation I've had like that in the last two months and I love that people are coming here willing to sit with me, make appointments and say, I'm not sure about all this stuff that you talk about but there's something here and I sense it and I sense it as well.

And this person said to me, I'm not sure I like everything the Bible has to say and I said, good, me either. Matter of fact, I don't even agree with everything the Bible has to say but I believe it. I want to give you that. Have you ever heard that option before? I had never heard that option but I started praying and I felt like the Lord said to me, I didn't ask you to agree with it.

I didn't ask you to even like it. I'm just going to say, ask you, are you willing to be submissive to it and let the rule be over your head? My kids, who are here again, I'm using them, they don't like everything I ask them to do. They don't agree with everything I ask them to do when I say, don't stick your tongue in the light socket. They don't agree with it but there's a reason I say it.

I want to give you permission not to like or have to agree with everything the Bible says but the question is, are you willing to let God be God and sit underneath that rule and that's what I asked this one person. I said, here's the thing, the Bible is about being submissive but submissive to what? To the rule or to the love of God? He came to shepherds. Don't disqualify yourself from that and who he came to too.

The reaction of those he came to. Verses 9 and 10, let's read it. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them. Just imagine that, the glory of God, like a million rainbows and stars exploding. I think that's why God shows us things like stars exploding because it's just a taste. It wouldn't even be compared to the glory of God.

You could have a million stars explode. You could have 10 million rainbows there in front of you and it wouldn't even touch the glory of God. It would be minute because all those things are finite but if you were to see the glory of God, we would expand in our understanding of his love and his dimensions and it says that the glory of God shone there and it's something that I would love to see.

It's also not a bad prayer and it says they were terribly frightened but the angel said to them, do not be afraid for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people. I gotta say, here's what's so sad about the fall of mankind. When we see the presence and glory of God, we're not supposed to be afraid. We're not supposed to be terrified.

We're supposed to welcome it and I wanna say when we move into eternity, from this place into eternity, we will welcome, we will welcome the glory of God and we will be able to see it in its fullness but because of the fall, because of the brokenness, because of the stain of sin that is on us, we have been moved and there now is a chasm between us and the glory of God which causes us because of our shame to be afraid of our father.

I tell you, we're not supposed to be afraid of our father. Like I said, my father's passed away, he's done a million good things but he was a German that was born in 1908 and he had a different way of doing things and I gotta say there was times where I was terrified of my father. He didn't beat me, he wasn't, you know, but there was times where I was just terrified of my father.

Terrified. I don't think that that helped me. I don't know if anybody else had that experience or had a father who was terrifying but on occasion he was a big man and he just terrified me as a little kid. I wanna say that's the one thing I wanna not do with my children. I know I used to have this look of death, they know it. My kids do something and I still have a tendency to do it.

I'm like, like this look of death, you know. Like I've never like given them the backhand or anything like that. They can totally call me out on all this right now and one day my wife said, you can't look at your kids like that. I said, I'm not hitting them, she goes, it's the same thing all, you know, and I was like, and I thought, it was about 10 years ago and I thought, I just can't, I wanna, where did that come from?

Because I know, anybody know the look of death? Anybody else know that? Dude, dad could give me the look of death and I knew it was coming. I've tried to detoxify myself from the look of death. I've not done a very good job of it, have I? Yeah, I got, yeah, she's doing it right now. She's doing the look of death. I don't want my kids to be afraid of me. I don't want my kids to fear me.

God doesn't want us to be afraid of him. Says that, you know, that God wants us to have relationship and that's what Jesus did. You know, it's interesting, they were terrified and you know what the news was? You know the news they were terrified of? That God is coming to bring peace and great joy. That was the news he came to give them. I came to give you, an angel comes from heaven to give them this amazing news that they're going to have peace and joy.

Imagine if an angel comes to you and says, I'm going to give you peace, great and great joy. Not just joy, great joy. You see, joy is not an emotion that we can get from earth. I believe that joy is something that has to be harvested from heaven and especially great joy and this is the message that was given to them and it says they were terrified by it. I want to ask you if you're terrified by God.

I want to say I'm oftentimes still terrified by God. God scares me. Living fully for God scares the stuff out of me. It just scares me. Being, and I don't know if anybody else, don't raise your hand, but are you terrified of what it would look like to live 100% for God? I'm like, I'm still like a 90%er, you know what I mean? Like I just got to, you know, it used to be like a 72%er when I first, you know what I mean?

But it's still, I'm terrified to live 100% for God. We're coming in for a landing, third point. And I ask you this, are you afraid of God? Let's stop being afraid of God. There's no reason to be afraid of God. The third point, how he came. Jesus came. And I want to say, you want to talk about not being afraid. The whole idea that sin caused this division which caused mankind to be afraid of God.

And you see that in Genesis. What did Adam and Eve do in Genesis? They hid. They hid themselves from God. So how does God come to say, hey, I can, I got to think, how can I show up that they won't be afraid of me? How can I show up that they won't be afraid of me? You want to talk, I tell you what, I studied mythology. I was reading about Thor this morning.

I'm really into that stuff. Reading about all the, there's not a divine narrative that I have ever seen that confounds me as much as God coming as a baby. Read about Thor, read about Zeus, read all these different stories that I see. There is not, I don't think man could make it up. Seriously. I think it's so far out there, I think it's so crazy that God would come as a baby that it actually makes sense to me.

And God, when he says, I want to come and I want to show you how to come, that you can come back to me and you can approach me, what is the way that he comes back? Boom. Boom. As a baby. I think that is so powerful. You know, I was thinking today, what is more fascinating? You know, I was thinking about stars and we were talking about that, that guy on TV that does all the star talk about Grassy or something like that.

We were talking about him yesterday, I had a big conversation about him. I thought, if I could watch a million universes explode or stare at a baby, what is more fascinating to me? I think, I kept thinking about it. I think babies. Maybe a million stars exploding and then there's a baby going, brr, brr, brr, brr, brr. I'm just like, ah, you know, Mount Everest or a newborn baby, like, baby.

I mean, it's just, I don't know, I like, maybe you don't like babies that much. Maybe, you know, I love babies. I find it amazing. I don't want any more baby. My wife's looking at me like, really? I'm out. Tap out. I got a nine-year-old. I ain't going back there. He came as a baby. He's approachable. God's approachable. And when he died, he opened up heaven that we can go in and not.

And then the final thing is this, what has he brought? The ability to once again experience true joy and peace while bringing people the good news of joy. Verse 14, glory to God in the highest and peace among men and whom he is pleased. What he brought was this, heaven was emptied. Heaven was emptied. Philippians, the whole book about Philippians is about a heaven that God just said, I'm just going to take everything that is in heaven, I'm just going to pour it out.

I'm just going to, I'm going to give the pearl of great price, I'm going to give my son. It's just, it's, once again, it's such a ridiculous story, it makes sense to me. It's so confounding that heaven is emptied and he watches him suffer for me, somebody who doesn't even know him, somebody who wants to be a 90 percenter. Like, I'm not even a good one, you know what I mean?

There's Christians that want to be really good Christians, you know what I mean? But he would still die for me because Romans 5, 8 says, while we were perfect, God died for us. No, it doesn't say that. It says, while you were a sinner, Christ died for you. I want to say, he died to give you peace. This, I would tell you, this world is so desperate for joy and peace.

It has no joy. It has no peace. It can give you a Lexus. It'll give you a little dopamine bump for a while, a little happiness, you know? But it is, just tell me where to find joy. Tell me where to find peace in this world. I want to say, there's only one place I found it. And even though I know where to harvest it and where to dig for gold, I oftentimes find myself wanting to dig for the dirt and missing the gold.

I want to say, are you digging for dirt or are you digging for gold? Sometimes, you know, I just dig and there's all this gold around me. I just want to look at the dirt, look at the dirt, look at the dirt. You know, it is a spiritual exercise. It takes discipline to learn how to fall into the love of God and to have joy. Joy is something we have to practice every day.

I've got to get outside yesterday. I was cooking and I found myself getting into my thoughts. What am I going to do in the new year in the house? I got to fix the house. You know, I don't know if anybody's going to, the more I'm alone, being alone is really good. But when I get into a certain alone time, I've been there too much and I'm like, I gotta get out.

Went across the street to, we handed out, I saw, if you're on Facebook, we were handing out, we made a bunch of cookies and stuff. We were handed out to the neighbors. I have three neighbors. They all live together. They're in their 90s and they're all in wheelchairs. It's awesome. And so I go and I knock on the door and all three of them roll to the door and, you know, I said hi to them.

I brought them cookies and they said, we got something for you too and they're amazed. They're still living on their own. Very cool. And they said, can we do anything for you? I said, yeah, I got some painting that's gonna be needing to be done next week so you guys wanna come on over. Get the low spots for me. It was so cool. So rad knowing your neighbors and then, you know, the other neighbor came across the street and he said, hey, I wanna go visit them tomorrow.

You wanna come with me? We're gonna go visit them because they don't have anybody to come visit. And I left there and like all the neighbors are loving each other. They're blessing me. We're hugging. I'm giving out my amazing, like cookies. I made deep chocolate cookies and I walked out and I thought, yeah, I felt good. And all of a sudden there was a joy that was available to me that wasn't available when I was in figuring out how I'm gonna clean my garage next week because I got a little bit of time to clean my garage.

It was doing the best to go harvest the gold and get away from the dirt. Amen? Amen. We're gonna sing about that. We're gonna ask the kids to come up. Let's ask the kids. I think the kids are singing and Chris, come on up. You can stay seated as we do this final song the kids are gonna sing. I wanna encourage you to come back next week if you're around. I'm gonna talk about being a new creation in a new year.

But this message, I think, is really important for some of us. I can't compete with that, can I? That's so good. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. One of my favorite stories is I bring up Dick Cotton a lot. He's been here like 30 years, 40 years in the church. He goes, I love it now with all these kids. We had years here we didn't know what a kid looked like.

It's awesome to have families. Let's let them bless us and then we'll let you out for some porridge and a blessing. Amen. Let's let them know we're out and we're just we're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time.

We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. We're at the same time. healing. Okay, ready?

Here we go. Oh, wait in the danger. Oh, pray for the pain. The pain of the Lord. Yes, let us lay down. The stars in the sky. Look down where we lay. The pain of the Lord Jesus. The pain of the pain. The pain of the Lord. The pain of the Lord. The pain of the Lord. The pain of the Lord. The pain of the Lord. The pain of the Lord. The pain of the Lord. The pain of the Lord.

It's not the pain of the Lord. Let us be strong, we stand in love. Let us be just weep in the name of Jesus. Let us be strong, we stand in love. Let us be strong, we stand in love. Let us be strong, we stand in love. Let us be strong, we stand in love. Let us be strong, we stand in love. Let us be strong, we stand in love. Oh, our God is to write in a word for us open today.

We wish you a Merry Christmas, baby. We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas. We wish you a Merry Christmas. We wish you a Merry Christmas. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. So, this year as you go out, we want to say Merry Christmas. I want to encourage you to have a childlike faith.

Jesus said that children have a really special place in the kingdom. I want to encourage you to go on a journey. It's not a perfect journey, but a journey of faith this year to follow Jesus as a child would, and to dive into what it looks like through pursuing him. We have a little thing I do here. If you want to put your hands out, I'd love to bless you for this day.

Lord Jesus, I bless this group of people, God, this flock of yours, and bless what you did this year. What a phenomenal year. We thank you for your birth, sending your son that we might have great joy and peace. And I bless you and send you. May the face of God shine on you as you go and everywhere you put your foot. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.