"Christmas is about receiving"

So I'm just gonna take a few minutes now to, explain to think about what Christmas is all about. I wonder what the key for Christmas is for you. What has to be there? What's the thing that you would say, yeah, Christmas is only Christmas if we've got this. Presence, maybe.

You gotta have presence. Watching the king's speech, how many here actually watch the King Speed, I you don't have to put your hand up. Maybe you have to have turkey. Maybe it's the food. If you gotta have turkey, some people have to have 3 meats on their plate, 3 different meats on their plates.

Maybe that's you. For us as a family, you've gotta have bread sauce. Well, I think you've gotta have bread sauce. Some hissing there. We're going we're going pantomime now.

Yeah. You gotta I mean, and not just a little bit of bread, not packet bread sauce. Homemade bread sauce, and you've gotta have lots of it. I mean, not just a teaspoon of it, you've gotta have plenty of it. In some cultures, it's gonna be having a curry on Christmas day.

In other cultures, it's gonna be, well, in Japan, I gather they have KFC. What makes it Christmas for you? It's gonna be different for you than it is for other people. Maybe it's Carol's, maybe it's the Bible readings. Let me ask you a slightly different question.

What's Christmas all about? You hear it fairly frequently, don't you want TV that after some item or during some item on the TV. Someone will say after all, that's what Christmas is all about. I saw, on TV, last week, there was a guy who covered his front lawn in lights and figures, not just the front lawn, but also on the roof as well. You know, there's always down every street.

There's 1 house that's a bit like that. Absolutely covered the front in lights. It was quite amazing. And he said it would've been quite difficult this year with all the storms. He'd had to take it down twice and put it all back up again.

But he was doing it for charity, raise money. Actually, it was quite funny. His daughter was into his growing up daughter was interviewed next because he did it every year, and she clearly wasn't very impressed with this. And it must be I mean, it must be a nightmare living next to them. It must be like living next to the sun, the brightness of it up.

But he was doing it charity. And he said he'd raised loads of money for charity through doing this. I gather there's someone in on the Sunrise state who does the same kind of thing. And you can imagine that lots of people will say, yeah, that's what Christmas is all about. It's about serving others, it's about generosity, it's about kindness, it's about love.

Now, I think that's probably what you're expecting. If you're new and you're coming to someone, you go, it's a Christian thing. That's probably what they're gonna say. That the message is be kind to 1 another, be nice, be generous, give. Now, that's not a bad thing, but at the heart of Christmas, is not giving.

It's receiving. Now you might think, oh, hang on. Did he get that right? Did he get that round the right way? Yes.

I did. At the heart of Christmas is actually not you giving, but us receiving. Now I need to explain that. And there's a verse in the bible, a sentence in the bible that we're gonna look at to help us understand what's at the heart of Christmas. It's a verse oh, it's gonna come up on the screen and I'm gonna read it out.

And if you can't quite see it, don't worry, I'll I'll read it out, and I'll refer to it. It's from 2 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 9. And it says this. For you know the grace of our lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor. So that you through his poverty might become rich.

Now do you see in that verse that explains Christmas to us. It explains what's going on at Christmas. It's 1 sentence and it just explains what happens at Christmas. And do you see it's saying that it's about Jesus. He is at the center of it all.

He becomes poor so that you might become rich. And that's what Christmas is all about. Now that takes a bit more explaining. And I'm going to explain it in 2 parts. First, that Jesus went from riches to poverty, and the second bit so that we can become rich.

So the first bit, Jesus, it says, went from riches to poverty. Says there. For you know the grace of our lord, Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor. Now, what's that all about? That is saying Jesus went from riches to poverty.

Now that can surprise people because most people, lots of people will think that Jesus, his existence began 2000 years ago when he was born, and laid in a manger. That that was the beginning of Jesus' existence, and that wasn't very rich. But this verse is saying, actually, Jesus' existence started before that. In fact, it didn't start. He existed before he was born and laid in a manger.

The Bible makes it very clear he existed before that birth in Bethlehem, and that he has always existed. And this verse is saying before he was born, he was rich. Before his birth in the stable, he was utterly and supremely rich. You know, you can look online to see who the richest person on earth is at the moment. It's a real time update.

So if you want, second by second, you can check where, you know, are you up there amongst the the top? And last time I looked, I wasn't up there at the top. It's still Elon Musk, who this afternoon was worth almost 440000000000 dollars, US dollars. But Elon Musk doesn't come close to the riches that Jesus had before he was born. Because well, I mean, you could say, I mean, in 1 way, you say, well, he was rich because he owned everything.

Because the Bible tells us he created everything. So everything belongs to him. Everything, everything on the planet. Everything in the universe was his, so he was rich. But that wasn't really the essence of his wealth.

His richness. You see, for all eternity, he enjoyed the loving relationship of the trinity. See, as Christians, we believe in 1 god in 3 persons, God, the father, god, the son, and god, the holy spirit. And god, the son, that's Jesus. And he existed for all eternity in a loving relationship with god, the father, and god, the holy spirit.

And that was his richness. That was his wealth. He was in that relationship, a relationship of pure love and joy and owned everything, utter and compelling riches. And yet, the verse says, he became poor. His descent is staggering.

I mean, merely being born on earth would be quite a come down. Just being born in this way, even if he was born in a royal household, that would be quite a step down, but he wasn't. He was born to a poor family. He was born to a family where, well, the dad was a carpenter. They weren't a particularly special family.

They were a quite an ordinary family, not a royal family or poor family. But his poverty didn't end there. His descent didn't just end when he was born. Because throughout his life, he was poor, but he ended his life nailed to a cross in agony, an agonizing death. He died a criminal's death, though he'd not done anything wrong.

That was his descent. He went from the riches of heaven to the poverty and degradation of being nailed to a cross. And the verse makes it clear he did that voluntarily. That's what it's saying, isn't it? For your sakes, he became poor.

He did it. He chose to do it. It's not like he gambled everything on the stock market and lost it all. Elon Musk could lose it all. Jesus didn't lose it like that.

He wasn't burgled, such that he lost his riches. No. He gave it up. Why? That verse says, he did it for you.

He did it for your sake. Jesus deliberately voluntarily gave it all up. For you. So when you see a picture of Jesus in in a manger, you know, on a Christmas card or somewhere else, you're to think he did that for me. So we then need to ask, okay, how does Jesus making that descent?

How does that mean that I can become rich. How does that help me? Well, that's the second point, isn't it? He did it so that we might become rich. See, the verse implies that we are poor.

That mankind, including you and me, are poor. We're in utter poverty. That doesn't mean poor financially, although some here may be in poverty. You may be struggling. Struggling to make ends meet.

But this poverty is a poverty that's true for all people in what way. Well, we saw actually the answer to that in our first reading. Which was the reading in Genesis, which tells us why the world is the way it is. What happened? Well, mankind, in the people of Adam and Eve, rejected god.

Disobeyed god. And the result was, you see it in that chapter in Genesis. The result was a breakdown in lots of ways. If you follow I'm not gonna take you through the passage, but you can see it in the passage that it means that people are broken. We're broken in ourselves.

We're broken in our relationships with 1 another, and the world is broken. That's what we see around us. You see, people are not at peace with themselves. We struggle with mental health problems, with depression, with anxiety, with fear, We struggle with meaninglessness and hopelessness. And we're not at peace with 1 another.

There are family breakdowns. We hurt 1 another. And on the big scale, there are wars and cruel dictatorships. And the world is broken as well. The world is a mess with global warming, famines, and floods.

It's why the world is the way it is. And ultimately, the Bible says The reason why there's all that brokenness, why we're broken in ourselves with 1 another and the world is broken. The the reason for it all is ultimately because we've rejected god. Because we don't live with god as god. We say, god, no, I don't want you to be god, and I'll be god in your place.

That's what we each do. We may not do it formally saying that to god, but we each take that step. That move of replacing god was described really well in a very deep theological work. It wasn't deep at all. It was actually on a wrapper of a Burger King Burger.

This was years ago. They did this. They put they put this on the wrapper of their burger, and it it's brilliant because it actually describes what we as mankind do to god. Here's what it says. You have the right to have this sandwich just the way you want it.

Exactly when you want it. Because on the menu of life, you are today's special. And tomorrow's, and the day after that, and the day after that, and well, you get the drift. Yes, that's right. We may be the king, but you, my friend, are the almighty ruler.

That's what we do to god. We say I'll be the almighty ruler. Thank you of my life. And you may not think that's a big deal after all everyone does it. We all think we have the right to rule our own lives, but then you look around the world, and you look at this country, and you look at ourselves, and you say, how's it going?

We end up with a broken world filled with broken people. And furthermore, if we stay like that, if we remain staying to god, I'll be the almighty ruler. Thank you. Then the reality is and the warning in the Bible is we will have to face the consequences. 1 day, we will face god, and he would be absolutely right to reject us for eternity.

And that is what we will face. We are poor, but Jesus went from riches to poverty, so we might become rich in a restored relationship with god. How does that work? Well, you remember I said, Jesus was for all eternity in a loving relationship with the other members of the trinity. That was part of his wealth, part of his riches, but our poverty is that we've rejected god.

We're in broken relationship with god. We're we're in a terrible state. Well, a swap takes place. Jesus went from riches, that riches of that relationship to poverty, to death on a cross. And when he died on the cross, He screamed out.

My god, my god, why have you forsaken me? In other words, his relationship with the father became broken. He went from that riches to the utter poverty to being on the cross in a broken relationship with god, taking our place. He got what we deserved. He received the rejection from god you and I should have.

So that our relationship with god could be mended. So we could have the kind of relationship he had for all eternity past with god. Here is the greatest of all gifts. Here is the key to Christmas, not you giving, but you receiving, if you will receive this gift that Jesus came to bring. And if you grasp it, it is the most exciting thing there is.

Jesus went from riches to poverty so that you through that poverty might become rich. Because through Jesus, god is calling you this Christmas, to come to him, to come into the relationship you were made for. And as we do, as we come into that relationship, through Jesus's generosity, god starts to deal with our brokenness. We have meaning and purpose in that relationship. Our anxieties and fears can be brought to him.

Relationships can start to be mended. And 1 day, God will restore all things, but the starting point has to be this, that we see our poverty. Will you see your poverty? Your rejection of god. Will you accept Jesus becoming poor, dying for you?

And will you therefore become really, truly rich. There's humility needed. In a few moments, the band are gonna sing a song, which is called, oh, come all you unfaithful. A song, which is all about the fact that at Christmas, god is calling not those who are faithful, actually, but those who are unfaithful. The broken, the hurting, the guilty, the poor, to come and be forgiven, and come back to god.

It changes your life. Those who've done it know it changes your life. It is for the better. It completely transforms you. And that's the heart of Christmas, receiving this gift from God.

Now if you'd like to find out more, I'd encourage you to do so. If this is new to you, and you're thinking, I, I don't know anything about this. I this sounds great, but I wanna find out more. Couple of things that you can do, 3 things that you can do first, do come back any Sunday, 10 30 here to hope church. We'd love to welcome you back.

And come along. And after services, do ask questions, raise objections with me if you want, very happy to do so. So do come back Sunday by Sunday. Second thing, do pick up 1 of these little booklets. It's called, so this is Christmas.

The people on the door as you leave will have them. They're free, just grab 1 and take it away and have a little read about Christmas. So do pick up 1 of them. And then the third thing that you could do, in the new year, we're gonna run a course called Hope Explored. It's a of course, which is just 3 sessions long.

It's free. And you can come along and find out about the hope, that there is in Christianity. This hope of relationship restored with god through the death of Jesus. If you'd like to find out more about that, Do you fill out, we've got these little cards that you could fill out your details on the card. And if you tick the box for exploring Christianity, we'll get in touch with you, and we can work out.

We don't work out the date for it beforehand, but I find out who wants to do it, and then we work out when it's going to work for us. So fill fill that out, handed in to myself or the people on the door, and we'll get in touch with you about that course. I wonder if you've grasped what Christmas is all about. It's not about just putting lights on your front lawn. It's not just about a stable, but it's about a swap.

It's about Jesus going from riches to poverty so that you might go from poverty to riches.