Good to see you. Merry Christmas to all of you here at Lake Forest
and all of our saddleback campuses that are meeting right now, watching right now,
literally all around the world. Mary Christmas to all of you. I
love you guys so much. I want you to know that this past year
I have prayed for you more this past year than I have in all the
other forty two years, any of those years. It was a pretty difficult
year, but I agree with that. But you made it. And so
what I want you to do is I want you to turn to a stranger
next to you say congratulations, you made it. Okay, congratulations, you
made it. You made it through twenty twenty one, all right, on
our forty second Christmas together as a church family, I want to do something
I've never done before. I want to begin Christmas by playing a video clip
of an NBA basketball game. Now, I'm gonna explain after I show it
to you why I'm showed it to you. But last week, in a
final four seconds of a game that really meant nothing between two losing teams,
one team hit a thirty foot basket to tie the game, but with one
second left, the other team shot a sixty foot sixty one foot basket to
win the game. Watch this, and then I'll explain to you why I
had to play taken to get there, got a foul and they do.
Okay, that ties the game. There's one second left. Garret Temple reads
for him, didn't get them, and give Shay Gilcher's Alexander credit as the
bunk. Okay, all right? Now? Why did I show you that
clip because the ESPN news title caught my attention because it used the word nobody
ever uses anymore. Here was the headline from that clip, Behold the craziest
finish to an NBA game ever. A sixty one foot shot at the buzzer
for a win beats a thirty footer, and it says this game really didn't
mean anything to anybody, and yet the game produced the most magical four point
five seconds you'll ever see on a basketball court. Behold it all right now.
Behold is the word nobody uses anymore. It's an old English word.
I doubt you've ever used the word behold in your entire life. I doubt
you've ever come out of a taco bell and said, behold, I ate
a burrito, and behold I burped, But behold is an important word in
the Bible. That word behold is used one thousand, two hundred and seventy
five times in the King James translation of the Bible. Inside your program there
is a outline. I want you to pull it out. These are teaching
notes for tonight. I want you to pull us out. Every verse we're
going to look at is on this little piece of paper. So pull it
out and notice at the top, I give a definition behold. What does
the word behold mean. Well. To behold something means to hold in focus
for an extended period of time. You don't just glance at it. You
really look at something for an extended period of time. To behold means to
gaze at something with ahe and appreciation. When I was in college and I
saw this cute chick walking down who would be my future wife toward me?
I beheld kay lewis okay, I didn't just gaze or glance at her.
I gazed at her. I be held with awe and appreciation. To behold
means pay attention. It means don't miss this. It means think about it,
seriously, give it your utmost attention. Now, would you agree that
today, in our add world, our attention deficit disordered culture, we all
have a shorter attention span than we used to have. Everybody agree with that.
We things catch our attention, but we lose attention very fast. Commercials
used to be thirty seconds long. Now you can get three, four,
five or ten commercials in a thirty second slot because it's hard to stay focused.
The truth is we don't take the time to behold anything. We glimpse
at things, We glance at things, but we don't gaze at things because
beholding takes too much time. We can't sit still long on us. We
have add We can't sit still long enough. When was the last time you
went out in nature sat down for thirty minutes to behold the beauty of nature?
I doubt you've ever done that, just be quiet and never said a
word for thirty minutes. When was the last time you sat down in silence
for twenty thirty minutes to behold the meaning of your life? Maybe never,
you see, we don't behold how things are changing all around us, and
how you were changing. You're not the same you were a year ago or
two years ago. Now, there's a difference between glimpsing at something and glancing
at something and gazing at something, or beholding you see, at Christmas time,
most people will give God a glimpse. They'll tip the hat to Jesus,
They'll glance, They'll get a glance, they'll take a little short look
at Jesus. And so you're in the mall and you're doing your Christmas shopping
and you start humming, oh, come let us a dorm because it's playing
on the mall speakers, or or you look at the manger scene, the
nativity scene of Jesus in the baby Jesus and the Manger, and you give
a glimpse, you give a glance to Jesus. But most people don't take
time to really behold the real gift of Christmas because we're too busy with the
Christmas rush. What I want you to do, and I'm asking you to
do, what I'm begging you to do, is for the next few minutes,
I want you to sit still, just for a few minutes, sit
still long enough to behold the best news you're ever gonna hear. I guarantee
it. So what is this best news ever? What is the good news
that God wants you to behold this Christmas. If you have never ever been
to church service, you picked a good one. The come dou friend,
because tonight I'm going to summarize the entire Bible in four sentences, in four
statements. Okay, pull out your teaching notes inside your program. I'm going
to summarize. I'm going to give you cliff notes on the Bible. This
is sixty six books together in the Bible, written over thousands of years,
and I'm going to give you a God's great plan for history and for you.
This is cliff notes on the Bible. This is Bible one oh one
two point five billion Christians follow Jesus and why the whole world celebrates Christmas.
The world shuts down at Christmas time. Even people don't don't believe in Christ
celebrate Christmas. Now. It starts like this, You're not an accident.
Your parents may not have planned you, but God plans you. You're not
an accident. God made you to love you. God wanted a family,
the whole reason in the universe exists. The Bible tells us God wanted a
family. So if God had not wanted to love you, he wouldn't have
created you. You wouldn't be taking your next breath. Every breath you take
is a gift from God. Every good thing in your life is a gift
from God because of God's love. Now, your life on this earth,
the sixty seventy eighty maybe ninety at the most one hundred years is really quite
short compared to eternity. This life is preparation for the next. This life
is preparation for eternity. God has long range plans for you, far longer
than your life on this planet. This is the press preparation stage. And
He wants you to live with him forever in heaven. But you got to
have a relationship with him. So he say, how how do I get
one of those? How do I have a relationship with God? I'm not
talking about religion. You may be Baptist or Buddhist, or Methodist, or
Mormon or Muslim, or you know, or no religion at all. How
can I have a friendship with God? We're talking about a relationship. Well,
that's the first part of the good news, the best news ever and
the reason for Christmas is that God took the initiative so you could get to
know him, because he wants you to know him Now, almost every Bible
verse we're going to look at tonight on your outline has the word behold in
it. And so every time we read it, if you see that whorred
circle the word behold. Because at the end of tonight, I'm gonna give
you a little Christmas homework to do. After you've done that. All right,
Now, here's the first thing God wants you to think about at Christmas.
Number one, Behold, God came to Earth. That's a big deal.
God came to earth. He became a human why so we could see
write this down what he's really like. God came to earth at Christmas in
the form of a human being, so we could see what he's really like.
If God wanted to communicate the birds, he would have become a bird.
If he wanted to communicate to horses, he would have become a horse.
He wanted to communicate the human beings, so he became one of us.
Now, in the Bible, Jesus is called many different things. One
of the things Jesus is called is the Word of God. And he's called
the Word of God because God sent him to communicate with us. Look at
this verse there on your outline. John Chapter one in the beginning was the
Word. That's all about Jesus. Jesus has existed from the beginning of time,
before even the universe. The Word was with God, and the Word
was God. This is what's called the Trinity. Everything was created by him.
Nothing has been made without him. He is the source of all life,
and his life gives light to everyone, everyone, every one of us.
The Word became a human and lived among us, and we beheld there's
that word. Behold, we beheld his glory, the glory of the Father's
only son, and we saw his full grace and truth. Now there's several
things. That's verse packed with a lot of truth in it, but I
want you to note several things. First, Jesus, because he is God,
has existed from the beginning of time. He has never not existed because
he is God. A lot of people think Jesus was created at Christmas.
No, he's always existing. He didn't start at Christmas. He existed before
anything else was made. In fact, the Bible tells us Christ Jesus made
the universe. Jesus made you, he made me, He made everything that
exists. He is the source of all life. Now, notice in there
it says in Jesus, we see the full grace and truth of God.
Circle that word full. What does that mean? Well, you can see
a lot about God without ever going to the Bible. You can know a
lot about God without ever going to church. All you have to do is
go out and look at nature. Creation teaches us a lot about our creator.
By looking at the creation. We know God likes beauty. It's real.
Lobyists ever seen a sunset, sunrise? God likes beauty. We know
God likes variety. Look at the world. Look at you Earth, Look
at all the people in the world. God likes variety. Diversity is his
idea to make us all different. God is powerful. Look at thunder lightning,
look at ocean waves, the currents. God is powerful. God is
organized. Everything in the universe is on a system. There's a plant king,
the animal kingdom. Ecology says we're all interrelated. God is an organizer.
There are a lot of things we know about God without even going to
the Bible. But there's some things you'd never know about God if it weren't
for Jesus. If Jesus hadn't come to Earth, you wouldn't know God loves
you. Nothing would tell you that you wouldn't know that God forgives you.
You wouldn't know that God has a purpose and plan for your life. You
wouldn't know anything about heaven. You wouldn't know anything about the afterlife without Jesus
because he can't without him, None of you wouldn't know any of that.
Now, we can learn a lot from other teachers, even in other religions,
there are glimpses of God, glimpses that we go, Yeah, that's
true, that's what that guy said is true. But that's true. But
to fully understand God, if you want to know what God is like,
take a long look at Jesus. Other teachers can give you a glimpse,
but he gives the full thing about God's grace. What else teaches God's grace
the way Jesus does God's forgiveness. Now, for thousands of years, God
told us that he was going to be coming to earth one day. He
predicted over and over through a lot of different wives and holy men. Let
me just show you one example up here on the screen in Isaiah chapter seven.
This was like six hundred years before Jesus. He said, God will
give you this sign. Behold, there's that word. Pay attention. A
version shall conceive and bear a son, and we'll call his name Emmanuel.
What does Manuel mean? Emmanuel means God is with us. God put on
a human body in Jesus. This is called, in fancy terms, the
incarnation. God became flesh. Now here's how it was announced at the very
first Christmas. Look there in your outline, Luke. Chapter two that first
Christmas night says that night there were shepherds watching over their flocks in the fields
outside of Bethlham. Suddenly, by the way, Bethlehem is the word for
house of bread. Beth in Hebrew means house. Him is the word for
bread in Hebrew, Bethlehem house of bread is where the bread of life was
born. Suddenly, it says, an angel appeared with the radiance of God's
glory surrounding them, saying, surrounding them they were terrified. I mean,
the guys are sitting by a probably campfire, a bunch of shepherds, smelly
shepherds, watching their sheep, taking easy, telling jokes. All of a
sudden, an angel shows up and they're terrified. But the angel reassured them,
saying, don't be afraid. Behold, I bring you good news of
great joy, which is for a very few people. Is that what it
says? Which is for what? You know what? I looked up that
word in the Bible and the original Greek. You know what everyone means.
Everybody doesn't matter what your religious his background is. It doesn't matter what your
race is, doesn't matter you're rich or poor, young or old, what
country you come from. Christmas is for everybody. I bring you good news
of great joy, which is for everybody today in the town of David.
That's Bethlehem, where King David had been born. Your Savior has been born.
Now circle that word savior. Your Savior has been born. He is
Christ the Lord, and you'll find him. Find the babe lying in a
manger. Now, a couple things first, what's a manger? Look up
here on screen. This is a manger. A manger is just a feed
trough for cattle, for horses, for donkeys. You put the hay uphie
so they could eat it. It was filled with animal slobber. It's not
exactly a sanitary place to put a baby. It's the most humble. None
of you were born in the humble circumstances. Jesus was born in you can't
get more humble than being laid in the feed trough of an animal. Now,
this would be a sign to the shepherds because when they go into Bethlehem,
there might have been several babies born that night, but there was only
one laying in a manger, lying in a manger, and that was Jesus.
But it says a savior has been born. You need a savior.
You may not realize it, but you need a savior. Believe me,
if you didn't need a savior, God wouldn't have wasted the time to send
one. Now, I'm not talking about saving you simply from sin. I'm
not talking just about saving you out of hell. I'm talking about saving you
from yourself. I'm talking about saving you from your bad habits that you can't
seem to stop, and those persistent thoughts of depression that you can't get rid
of, and those worries that kend of get a grip on you. There
are thousands of things that you need to be saved from. You're not God.
You can't even solve your own problems. By those problems, that's the
problems of the world. So you need a savior. I need a savior.
If we didn't need one, he wouldn't have wasted time to come at
Christmas. But he came to be a savior, and we'll talk a little
bit more about what that means. Now, look up here on the screen.
Here was the response. Suddenly there, well, there's one angel talking
to shepherds. Suddenly the angel was joined by a huge choir of angels lighting
up the sky. I mean, what a light show that was. Praising
God and singing glory to God in the highest and let there be peace in
God's favor on earth. Now, let me ask you an opinion. When
that happened, you're let's say you're a shepherd out there. Do you think
the shepherds when all that lit up the sky? Do you think they glanced
or glimpsed or gazed at it? Do you think they went huh? Angels
when they're looking back at the more they're making over the campfire. No,
believe me, it lit up the sky. They beheld it. It was
a wonder to behold. They didn't dare look away. They were focused because
this was unusual, and they had to ask themselves what does all this mean?
All right, Now we come to the second part of God's plan for
history and God's plan for you. First part, God came to earth.
He became a human being called Jesus Christ. Here's the second thing God wants
you to think about it, Christmas. Behold, God lived a perfect life,
a sin free life on earth. This is really important. We'll come
back to the minute. He lived a sin free life on earth. Then
he paid for your sins and my sins, so Louis would not have to
That's really good news. You're not gonna get any better news than that.
Everything you've ever done wrong in life has already been paid for. Even the
sins you have haven't committed yet, they were all paid for on the cross.
Now follow me on this. Most people understand the logic that we are
responsible for our own actions. I can't blame you for the dumb decisions I
make. Uh. And we also know that there has to be penalties when
you break a law or when you hurt people. There's a penalty to be
paid for that. We have to pay for the wrongs that we do.
There's a concept that's called justice. We all know that we all want justice.
That's not fair. He got away scot free. Now, in Buddhist
thought, the idea that you can that whatever happens to you in life is
because you deserve it. That's that's called karma in Buddhism, and it means
if bad things happen to you because you're a bad person. That's what Buddhism
teaches. There's no innocent suffering. Anything that happens wrong you you deserve it.
It's not a very encouraging thought. But God in Jesus Christ came up
and introduced a new concept greater than justice and greater than karma. It's called
redemption and grace. You're gonna like this one. And the idea of redemption
and grace is that somebody else could pay for your sins so that you could
be forgiven and go scott free. They do your time, they pay your
penalty, they pay your ticket. That the things that you need to be
paid back for all things you've done wrong, somebody else could pay for him
instead. And that's what Jesus Christ did. This is really good news.
Now here's what happened at the baptism of Jesus. This idea was first announced.
Jesus was thirty years old when he's baptized. Look at this John chapter
one one day, John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him. He's going
to be baptized. So John announced, behold, there's that word circle.
It old the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Now we may not understand what's he talking about here, the lamb of God.
We don't understand this, but every Jewish person in the world knows the
symbolism of this verse because once a year in the Jewish faith, a perfect,
spotless lamb was sacrificed at Passover to represent the salvation and the redemption of
everybody that we're all forgiven. Now, after Jesus Christ dies on the cross
for my sin and your sin, there was no longer any need for any
symbolic sacrificing of animals. But when they were doing that, the lamb that
was going to be sacrificed for the sin of other people had to be spotless.
It had to be a perfect lamb. Only a perfect life could die
for all our imperfections. I can't die for your sins because I'm a sinner.
I'm in pervity. You can't die for my sins because you're in perfect
Only a perfect, spotless lamb could die for everybody else's imperfections. Now,
it's interesting to me that when the people who wanted to crucify Jesus brought Jesus
to their Roman governor in Jerusalem, his name was Pilot. You heard of
this guy, and they bring Jesus to Pilot for a trial. It's one
of six trials Jesus went through. And Pilot takes Jesus side and interviews him.
Now he is no Christian, he's a pagan. He's a Roman dude.
And he interviews Jesus. And after he interviews him, he acknowledges that
Jesus had done nothing wrong. He was totally innocent. Look at this next
verse, Luke, chapter twenty three. Then Pilot says to these leaders,
you brought this man Jesus to me. But behold, there's that word.
Behold. I didn't find him guilty of any of your charges against him.
And by the way, neither did King Herod. That was another trial he
went through. Neither did King Herod, for he sent him back to me.
Behold, he's done nothing deserving death. So alls having flogged and released,
but they all cried out, no crucify him. Pilot says, I
find no fault in Jesus. I don't see any sin. I don't see
any mistake, I don't see any error. I don't see any crime that
he's worthy of being punished for. So let me ask you tonight in twenty
twenty one, at Christmas, a logical question. If you have not acknowledged
Jesus Christ that he has a right to your life, let me ask you,
what do you find wrong with him? What do you find wrong with
him? On what basis would you reject what he did for you? On
what basis would you reject him as your savior? You see, Pilot gave
everybody an opportunity to decide what they're going to do with Jesus. And after
the Roman soldiers had tortured Jesus and put thorns in his crown, in his
head and put a robe, the Bible says this, look up here on
the screen. This is after they had tortured him. So Jesus came out
wearing a crown of thorns and a purple robe that the soldiers had mocked him
with. Then Pilot said to everyone, here's the word. Behold the man.
What's he doing here? What's Pilot doing? He said, I'm giving
you a choice. I'm giving our right choice. What are you going to
do with Jesus? Behold the man? You can't ignore him. You could
either accept Jesus as Lord and savior or you could reject him. They could
accept him, or they could crucify him. What are you gonna do this
Christmas with Jesus Christ? Accept him as your savior or reject him. You're
gonna behold Jesus or are you're going to betray Jesus? Okay, Now we
come to the third and the fourth part of God's plan, his eternal plan
for all of history and for you. Par one. God comes to earth.
He comes in a human form, Jesus Christ, so we can know
what God's like. Number two. He lives a perfect life, so he
could die for all of our imperfections. He lives a sinless life, so
he could die for all of our sins. It's called redemption and grace.
It's a new concept, so you don't have to pay for all the bad
stuff you've done or I have done. Here's the third part of the plan.
Behold, Jesus defeated death. He defeated death by raising himself back to
life. So we can live forever with him. We don't have to be
afraid of death anymore. Jesus changed our understanding of death by defeating it.
Now, listen, you guys. If Jesus had not come back to life
on Easter Sunday, nobody in the world would be celebrating Christmas tonight. Why
because Jesus would have been a liar, a fake, a phony, and
a con man, and he would have conned out two point five billion people
on the planet. Because he said, here's how I'm going to prove that
I am who I say am. I am God. Now, a lot
of people in history have claimed to be God. I could claim to be
God, you could claim to be God. But only Jesus proved it.
He said, I'm going to let them kill me. They'll put me in
the grave for three days, and three days later, are raised myself back
to life. That's called the resurrection. That's not a resuscitation. We have
resuscitations all the time. People die for ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty
minutes or whatever, and then they come back to life. That's not a
resurrection. That's a resuscitation. Resurrection means you've been buried for three days nobody
does that. Only Jesus proved it. And it was such a significant event.
It's the most important event in history. It's split our entire calendar in
the AD and BC. Every other event in history is dated in relationship to
the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Your own birthday, your day, month,
year, What is that all about. It's your day, month year in
relationship to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Every other event in history before BC
or AD in the year of our Lord is related because of the resurrection.
It's split history. That's why it's the most important event in history, even
more important than Christmas, because Christmas wouldn't matter if that didn't happen. Now,
notice how it happened. On that first Easter morning there on your outline,
Matthew, chapter twenty eight says this, and behold, there's that word.
There was a great earthquake, and an angel came and rolled back the
large stone in front of the tomb door and sat on it. This is
kind of a little sarcasm here. It just sits on it. Now,
what's this idea? In those days, they didn't bury people all the time
in the ground, but they would offer bury them in caves or in caverns,
and they would there was a lot of limestone in the Middle East.
They'd dig out a family crypt and not one person was buried in it,
but lots of people. And every time somebody in a family died, they'd
roll back the stone and put the new person in the roll it back,
and generations of family members would be buried in the same tomb. Now,
this particular tomb is owned by a rich man named Joseph Verimathea, brand new
to me. He'd bought it. Nobody had been buried in it yet,
and it had this big stone. Now, the opponents of Jesus said,
we've heard that he claims he's going to come back to life. We don't
want anybody stealing the body. So they said, here's what we want you
to do. We want you to seal it with the Roman seal and put
guards around jesus tomb. Jesus is the only tomb that's ever had to be
guarded to keep the guy from coming back out. Okay, but they did
that. Now on Easter morning, an angel comes breaks the seal and here's
what it says. Says he sat in front of the tomb on the stone,
and his appearance was as bright as lightning, and the tomb guards were
so frightened that they shook with paralyzing fear. But the angel said to the
women there were some followers of Jesus who had come back on Sunday, addressed
and anoint his body with spices like the burial preparation. And the angel says
to the women, don't be afraid. I know you're looking for Jesus who
was crucified, but he's not here, for he has risen, just as
he promised. And then he said, come on in look at this.
Come on into the end of the grave tomb. Behold the place where they
had laid his body. Now go tell his disciples that Jesus has risen from
the dead, and behold, he'll meet you in Galilee. Lo I have
told you. Now if you want to circle, low and behold, that's
the first mention of Lo and behold in the Bible. Lo, and behold
there it is all right. Lo, I've told you. So the women
hurried away afraid. Okay, they're afraid, yet filled with joy, and
they ran to tell his disciples what the angel had told them. But here's
the clincher. On the way. Behold, Jesus met the women. Look,
yeah, he's out wacked around and he says, greetings, I guess
that's the typical reaction for a risen savior. Greetings, how's it going?
Amazed? They ran to him, embraced his feet and worshiped him. Okay,
worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, don't be afraid. Second
time in the Easter story. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Go
tell my brothers. I'm going to meet them in Galilee. Now you probably
know this, but Jesus didn't immediately return to heaven after he came back to
life. Instead, he spent the next forty days forty more days walking around
the streets of Jerusalem, meeting with people, eating with people, having dinner
with people, talking with people. One time, he preached a sermon to
five hundred people. This is why the faith spread so fast, why it
went from twelve people to the dominant faith of the Roman Empire in a couple
hundred years, because there were tons of eyewitnesses which watched Jesus publicly be crucified
to death and then later meet with him after the resurrection. For the next
forty days. Can you imagine being one of the soldiers who put Christ to
death and you're walking down the street one day Jerusalem, all a sudden he's
there. He's back. That would be weird to see the guy that you
know you just killed. So Jesus didn't just meet me to go back to
heaven. Lots of people saw him and talk to him, And one time
he did a cookout for breakfast out of Fia Galilee for a bunch of people.
After forty days of giving people proof and everybody, then hundreds of thousand
people came to Christ almost instantly. Jesus gave these last instructions before he goes
back to heaven. Next verse, then Jesus told him, Okay, now
go to all people everywhere and make them my disciples. Teach them to do
everything I've shown you. Jesus never asked us to do something he hadn't already
modeled. And behold there's another Behold, I am with you always to the
end of the age. That's a good behold. This is a comforting fact
to behold and think about, and no matter what happens. In twenty twenty
two, he says, behold, I am with you always, did you
know that God is always with you, That Jesus is always with you,
so I don't always feel them. Jesus is not a feeling. Feelings come
and go, whether you feel them or not, so irrelevant. He's always
with you. You are never lonely by yourself when you realize God says,
I am with you all the time. Jesus is always watching you, He's
always waiting with you. He's always with you. And that's a comforting thing
to know that. I don't know what the future holds, but I know
who holds the future. And I know that no matter what I go through
this next year, I'm not going through it alone. And I can turn
to God in any moment. Now. In Acts chapter one, it says
this, when Jesus had finished speaking these things, they beheld him being taken
up into the sky until they could no longer see him past the clouds.
This is called the ascension. He's going back up to heaven, it says.
As they continued to gaze at the sky, two men dressed in white
appeared, likely angels. The one said, why are you Why are you
still staring at the sky. This same Jesus that you just saw taken from
you up into the heaven will return one day in the same way that you
saw him leave, in the same way that you saw him leave. Now,
this leads us to the fourth part of God's story. Okay, and
here's number four. Here's the fourth thing you need to think about this Christmas.
Behold, God's plan for the universe and for you isn't finished yet.
It's not done. Jesus will return to complete God's plan and take us to
heaven. Now, if he comes in our lifetime, that'll happen that way.
If he comes in after we've already dead and we're already in heabit,
it'll be forever those who are there. But Jesus said, I am going
to come back in the same way. Well, the night before Jesus was
crucified, he got all of his followers together, and he wanted to say
some words comfort, knowing that they were going to watch him be tortured and
crucified. He said this in John fourteen. Do not let your heart be
troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's
house in Heaven are many man shoulds. If it were not so, I
would have told you and I'm going to prepare a place for you. And
if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and
receive you unto myself, that where I am you may be. Also,
Thomas said to Jesus, Lord, we don't know where you're going, and
we don't know the way. And Jesus said, I am the way.
I am the way, I am the Truth, and I am the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me. I'm betting my life
that Jesus Christ is not a liar. What are you betting your life on?
Well, I just feel. Feelings are highly irrational. Feelings are highly
unreliable. You better have more than just a feeling for the rejection of your
savior. Jesus said, I am the way. No one comes to the
Father except through me. And he said, if I go, I'll come
back. Did he go? Yeah, he went, He's coming back one
day. How's that going to happen? Well? John Revelation, chapter one,
verse seven. So of this behold, he is coming with the clouds,
and every eye will see him, and all the tribes of the earth
should gaze upon him. If you will, how's the world going to end?
I'll tell you it's gonna end just like that. That's the end of
history right there. We already know. I've read the last after the book.
I know how it's going to end now. John was one of the
last of the original twelve disciples who followed Jesus Christ. He was the last
one to die. He died in old age. He was put on a
prison island, imprisoned on an island called the Island of Patmas in the Mediterranean
Ocean by the Roman Empire. And he died as an old man. But
before he died, before he died, he got a glimpse of heaven.
And in Revelation chapter twenty one, God gave John a glimpse of what heaven
is going to be like Revelation twenty one, see that verse. Behold,
God's home is now with his people. We're going to be with God forever
in heaven. Behold, God's home is now with his people. He'll live
with them forever, and they will be his family. And they will wipe
away every tear. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. See,
there's no sorrow, no sadness, no suffering, no sickness, no
sin. In heaven. There will be no more death. There will be
no more grief or crying, there will be no more pain, for the
old order of things will pass away, and God will say, behold,
I'm making everything new, and all the things that have broken this planet broken,
the economy broken, the weather broken, relationships broken, marriages, broken,
your bodies. Everything on this earth is broken because of sin. But
he says, I'm gonna make it all new in heaven. No more sadness,
sorrow, suffering, sin, sickness, no more grief, no more
trials, no more troubles, no more health problems. You won't be in
heaven five seconds when you're going to realize, you know what, I gave
too much of my focus on earth, the things that didn't matter, the
things that didn't last, the things that weren't gonna matter for ten years,
much less for eternity. What was I thinking this Christmas? In my challenge
to you, behold the true message this Christmas. I want you to get
your focus off yourself, get yourself, focus off your problems, get your
focus off your worries, and behold how much God loves you that he wants
you to trust him, his son Jesus Christ. It is genuinely generally acknowledged
that one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century was doctor C. S.
Lewis, professor at Oxford, wrote dozens of books and intellectual giant,
brilliant intellect. C. S. Lewis once said, the only thing Jesus
cannot be is moderately important. Now I want you to think about that for
a minute. The only thing Jesus cannot be is moderately important. Because if
he wasn't telling the truth, if he said I'm God, if he's not
God come in human form, if he didn't live a perfect life, if
he didn't die for your sins, you're gonna have to die for him.
If he didn't rise from the dead. You know nothing about heaven and the
afterlife, and it's all it's in fact, your life doesn't matter. There's
no point to your life, there's no purpose to your life. That's all
false. If that isn't true, he's a fake, a phony, a
con man, a fraud. And Christmas is the biggest hoax in history,
and the world is celebrating with all of our Christmas traditions, a giant hoax.
It's all a lie. People said, Well, you know, I
think maybe Jesus was a good man, he couldn't be. He either has
to be God or he's a fraud, one or the other. No good
man will go around saying I'm God, I'm the only way to heaven.
I'm the way to have all your sins forgiven. I could say I'm a
good teacher, and some of you go, yeah, I've heard rick for
decades, he's a good teacher. But if I stood up here and said,
by the way, I'm the only way your sins will be forgiven,
I'm the only way you're getting to heaven, and I am God in human
form, now you got to make a decision. I'm either a nutcase or
a total fraud. I'm no longer a good teacher. A good teacher would
never claim that Jesus could not possibly be just a good teacher. He's either
a total fraud or he's who he claimed to be. There's no logical,
rational option beside that. And I told you earlier, I'm betting my life
that Jesus was telling the truth. What are you betting your life on?
And I told you feelings are highly unreliable. Now I want to end with
one more. Behold, I told you there's and seventy five of them.
We just looked at a dozen. But in the last book of the Bible,
Revelation, chapter three, Jesus says this, it's here on the screen.
Behold, I'm standing at the door, at your door, the door
of your life, and I'm knocking. I'm knocking. And if you hear
my voice and you open the door, I'll come in and will fellowship.
You can begin a friendship with God tonight. I'm not talking about religion,
folks. I'm talking about a relationship to God. You were not made for
a religion. Jesus didn't die for a religion. Jesus died because he made
you. He loves you, He wants you in heaven with him. He
came to be your savior. And there's no other way. You're getting saved.
And if you didn't need a savior, Christmas wouldn't have happened, for
unto you is born as a savior. He is Christ the Lord. Either,
like Pilot said, behold a man, either accept them or reject him.
You behold him or you betray him. You trust him, or you
a crucify him. Those are the options this Christmas. What are you giving
Jesus for Christmas. It's his birthday. You're buying gifts for everybody else.
What are you getting for the birthday? Boy? Can you imagine having a
birthday buying gifts for everybody else, but not the birthday boy, our child,
it's his birthday. What do you give? You say, well,
he's God, yep, What do you give God? What do you give
the God who has everything? He doesn't have your life unless you give it
to him. He doesn't have your trust unless you give it to him.
He doesn't have your love, allegiance, and loyalty unless you give He doesn't
have the honor he deserves. He gives you that option. What are you
going to give Jesus for his birthday? Stop celebrating Christmas if you're not going
to give him your gift, the gift that he wants from you. He
wants you to trust you. He wants you to love him. He has
never not loved you, And years before you were born, he knew that
on Christmas Eve twenty twenty one you'd sit in a cold, saddle backed church
and we'd have the coldest day of our year with the most rain, so
he could say this to you, You matter to me. I love you.
I've known every moment of your life. I made you and I want
a relationship with you, and that's why I went through all this that we
just talked about so you could be mine and being part of my family.
That's buy our heads for prayer. I'm going to pray simple prayer of trust.
Maybe you've never opened your life to God to Christ. Just follow me
in this simple prayer. It doesn't matter. Words don't really matter. What
matters as a humble attitude, but you might just say, Dear God.
God, and God knows what you're thinking. You do not have to say
it aloud. Dear God, thank you that you came to earth and became
a human being so we could know what you're like, so we could see
your full grace and your full truth, not just get a glimpse of you,
but know what you're really like. And thank you Jesus Christ, that
you lived a perfect life so you could die for my imperfections. You live
the sinless life so you could die for all the stuff I've done wrong,
all my sins. I find no fault in you. And thank you Jesus
that you rose back from life, you raised yourself from death, to defeat
death, to show us that there's life after death, to give us the
promise that we can live forever with you. Thank you for that. God.
I know your plan is not finished yet, Jesus. Just as you
said you'd come one day, and you did. You said you're coming back
one day, and you will, whether it's in my Lifeti'm her I die,
and I've trusted you and have gone to heaven, and you come in
the future. Sometime You're going to keep your word. But today I believe
that you're standing at the door of my life and you're knocking, and I'm
saying, okay, God is best. And how as I know how I
want to know you. I want to know you. I open my life
to you now as much as I know. I ask you to come in
inside of me. Fill me with your love, fill me with your peace,
fill me with your presence. I don't want you to be moderately important
in my life anymore. God, I want you to be the most important
thing in my life because you made me and you have a purpose and plan
for my life. So as humbly as I can say this, Jesus Christ,
I ask you to be my savior. I'm saying, yes, I
behold, and I believe, and I pray this in your name. Amen,