3 Truths Of Christmas | Jabin Chavez | City Light Church

Amen, Luke chapter one, verse 30. And the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, shall call his name Jesus. Which means Jehovah saves. For he will be great, he will be called the son of the highest. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom, there will be no end. Then Mary said to the angel, how can this be? How could I get pregnant? I've never known a man. I'm a virgin. How could I become pregnant? And the angel answered, the Holy Spirit will overshadow you. He'll come upon you and the power of the highest will overshadow you. Therefore, also that Holy one who is to be born will be called the son of God. Now, indeed, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age. And this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. Boy, I love that. That's a whole sermon right there.

Just elbow your neighbor real quick because they feel a little judgmental. Tell them, don't judge me. Tell them I'm not who I was. Come on, tell them I'm not who I was. I'm not. I'm not who I was. For with God, nothing will be impossible. Then Mary said, behold, the maidservant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. I wanna just share very quickly with you three truths about Christmas, three truths about Christmas. Father, I thank you for your word right now. I pray you speak to every heart in Jesus' name. The first truth about Christmas is that God is near. God is near. God is not far away out there somewhere. God is near. God is close. Isaiah chapter seven, verse 14 says that his name will be called Emmanuel, God with us. With us, God with us. God is with us. God is not far from you today. He's right here right now. Religion is a journey of humanity trying to hopefully, maybe, one day, someday get to God that is radically different than the gospel of Jesus.

The gospel of Jesus is not man getting to God. The gospel of Jesus is God getting to us. That when we couldn't get to God, God in Christ came to us. Oh, this is good news. That's the gospel of JC, Jesus Christ. A lot of you have the gospel of SC, Santa Claus. You better watch out. You better not cry. I've seen a lot of the bargaining you've been doing with your kids. You better not pout. He's making a list. He's checking it twice. He's gonna find out who's naughty or nice. Jesus Christ is coming back again. That's how a lot of you think about Jesus. He sees you when you're sleeping. He sees you when you're sleeping. Does this sound like a horror movie? Those lyrics really change when it's not Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 singing it, is it? That's how a lot of you think. But that's not the gospel. The gospel is a message for the naughty, for the messed up, for the sinner. You can't even receive the gospel until you have settled the fact that you need the gospel. Jesus isn't for good people as if they exist. For God so loved the world that he gave

his only begotten Son that whoever would believe, believe not earn, believe not try, believe. Believe. Will believing lead to good works? I hope so. I think so, it has for me. But am I saved by them? Absolutely not. Believe that whoever would believe, that whoever would place their faith in him, Ephesians 2, eight says, it is by grace that you've been saved. Grace not works, grace. Not fasting, grace. Not church attendance, I'm so glad you're here. Grace not giving in the miracle offering, though I'm so glad you did. Grace not tithing, grace. Grace. It's by grace through faith that you've been saved. This is a gift from God. Which, grace or faith? Both. That no one can boast. Grace, not baptism. Grace, not character. Grace, not you stopped cussing. Grace, not you stopped drinking. Grace not, you've become a better husband. By the way, I hope all those things happen.

I think if you stick around here, it's gonna happen. But are you saved by those things? No. You're not gonna get to heaven and the Lord's gonna look at you and go, one too many F-words, bro. I don't recommend the F-word. I think it's gnarly and nasty. But my ability to say or not say a four-letter word is not what cleanses me from sin. Only Jesus can do that. You know, we just sang a song. We give you all the glory. You know, that's what church is. We come to give him glory. You know what we didn't sing just now? We give us all the glory. We got to church on time. We got to church on time. We are really good people. We give us all the glory. I've paid my tithing full. I helped build this building. We give us all the glory. Haven't been to a strip club in six months. I'm a really good person. Now, I love that you are on time and I love that you tithe. I love that you haven't been to the strip club, sir. I haven't been to the strip club in six months, amen.

But all the fruit that we should be bearing as believers comes from gratitude, not fear. Gratitude, not trying to earn. I always think of a life that's honoring God as a thank you note. I really believe in thank you notes. I think handwritten thank you, those are old school. Anybody know what a pen is? Have y'all ever seen a pen before? You take a piece of paper and you write on it and it's a thank you note and the thank you note cannot compare to the gift. The thank you note is not there to repay the gift. The thank you note is there to say, I recognize the gift and I just wanted you to know that I'm grateful for the gift. Can't pay you back for it. In no way comparing this note to the gift, it's just my way of saying, that's what my life to God is. I can't pay God back. But boy, I can live a life of gratitude. God is near, number two, God speaks. God speaks, God speaks. Nine times in the Christmas story, God spoke, either directly, either through an angel or in a dream. See, God wants to be known. Therefore, God reveals himself to us, speaks to us and pursues us. This is what God does.

There's an old Christmas carol, Hark the Herald Angels Sing. It's just old King James where, listen, listen. Listen, God is speaking, listen. Faith comes by hearing, the Bible says, Romans 10, 17. Faith comes by hearing. By your ability to receive from the Lord, by your ability to open your heart and your ears to God and say, God, I'm listening. The Bible says that when you open your life to the word of God and the voice of God, that faith begins to erupt in you and it begins to transform you. Jesus said, I will cleanse you by the word I speak, John 16, that as I get into the word, the word gets in me and as I read the word, the word reads me and as I rightly divide the word, the word rightly divides me and separates sin out of my life and cleanses me from the inside out and as he spoke, the spirit came into me and raised me to my feet. That's what happens, Ezekiel 2.2, that's what happens every time you read the Bible. The spirit of God enters you and raises you up on your feet, puts your feet on the rock. The word of God will change your life and listen, I don't read the Bible for the Bible. I read the Bible to get to the author of the Bible. It's not about just scripture memorization.

It's not about I know more than you. It's not about Greek and Hebrew. It's about the God and the author of this Bible that when I go to the word, I say, speak to me, Lord. I don't read the Bible so I can say, I read four chapters today. I read the Bible in a year. Oh yeah, no, no, no, I read the Bible so that I can meet the author of the book because God wants to be known by you. He wants to know you so much that he gave you a book, not so that your faith would end at the book, but so that it would lead you to him. There's a group of researchers that researched thousands of people on daily Bible reading to see what it did to their life. Here's what they learned. They learned that if you read the Bible, The Bible, one to three times a week, it did not do much to personal transformation. It just, they saw a little blip on the screen, but not much. But for some reason, when you would read the Bible at least four times a week, it like went off the Richter scale. I think it's Psalm 119, that as we hide God's word in our heart, it transforms us. And what they learned in reading the Bible at least four times a week, feelings of loneliness dropped by 30%. Anger issues dropped by 32%.

Bitterness and unforgiveness dropped by 42%. Alcoholism dropped by 57%. Feeling spiritually stagnant dropped by 60%. By the way, feeling, feeling, feeling, because there is a part of this word that changes your emotions and your feelings and your outlook. Viewing pornography dropped by 62%. Sharing your faith, your desire to share your faith increased by 200%. And your desire to serve humanity increased by 230%. God speaks. Lastly, God does miracles. Mary said, how can this be? How? I'm a virgin. There is a limitation here. How? He said, the Holy Ghost will come upon you. And I can't preach this verse without hearing my pastor's voice. My pastor, Jenson Franklin would say, Jabin, for every how, there's a Holy Ghost. How's God gonna restore my life? The Holy Ghost is gonna come upon you. How's God gonna put our marriage back together? The Holy Ghost is gonna come upon you. How's God gonna heal my body? The Holy Ghost is gonna come upon you. How's God gonna give me victory in this next year?

The Holy Ghost is gonna come upon you. This picture of the virgin birth is not only real, is not only what happened, but it is a sign and a wonder to every believer that there will be times in your life that you will look at your life and go, how? That's where the miracle happens. When you don't have the resource and you don't have the money and you don't have the experience and you don't have, and where you're at a lack, the Spirit of God fills that void. It was one year ago that I was in trouble. I'll just tell you, I was in trouble. We needed a lot of money very quickly. We didn't realize it, but we were way over budget on the building and the contractor met with us and he slid a piece of paper across. I've never told the amount of how much we needed and I'm not going to today because it'll just ruin the mood. And they said, pay this in two weeks or we're gonna stop construction. And we didn't have the money and the church was pretty much just tired of hearing about the building and tired of giving and tired of me and tired. And so was I, I was tired too. So I didn't feel like I could go to the church.

So I wrote a letter. I wrote a letter to every preacher friend that I knew. And I said, we need your help. Those letters were in envelopes and they were gonna go out on Monday, December 16th, okay? And the letter was very aggressive. It was something along the lines of like, you need to help us. And if you don't, God's gonna give you hemorrhoids, something like that. I don't remember. It was something violent, like you help this church in Vegas or you're gonna go to hell. You know, something like that. I don't remember, you know. With you guys, I'm real gracious. Give if you feel the Lord lead you. With preachers, you gotta be strong. Amen. I need help now. So the letters were in the envelope and they were going out. Now watch this. The Lord did not tell me to write that letter, but I was so scared, Reuben, I was so scared. I thought they're gonna shut down the project. And y'all are gonna leave. And I'm gonna be stuck with a half built building. But then the Holy Spirit spoke to me.

And I saw myself in this auditorium, empty, filming a video to post on Instagram, full of faith, even though I was full of fear, but full of faith saying, hey, if you wanna give at the end of the year to help us move into this building, praise God, it's all going so great and everything's working out perfectly and we got all the money, but if you wanna give, you can give. That's what I did, because I was just like, I gotta be full of faith here, because I was freaking out. So I did the video, and that week, my friend, Mike Todd, opened his Instagram account, and he saw that video, and the Holy Spirit, and I want you to notice this, because Mike didn't tell me God or Jesus or I felt or, he said it was so weird, I opened the video, and the Holy Spirit told me, and I said, well, that's crazy, because the Holy Spirit told me to do the video. And without that letter going out, I'll tell you that, the rest of the story in a second, the Holy Spirit spoke to him, and that Sunday, some of you were here, Transformation Church gave us $1 million, and it literally kept the building going. I never even got to, like, Bob, I never even got to see the money hit the account. It hit in the morning, and by the afternoon, it was gone. Because I went into the office, and I told the CFO, I said, can I see, I've just never seen that. He said, it's already gone. So he opened up the account, and it was plus a million, and then it was minus a million in two minutes. I said, oh, bye, see ya, and it kept us going.

Sunday night, our CFO texts me, he goes, hey, the letters are ready to go out in the morning. Are they still going out? I said, no, the letters aren't going out. Burn them. How? The Holy Ghost overshadowed us and helped us get through that crazy, wild, terrifying moment, and what he did for this church, he'll do for you. Why? Because he does miracles. The Bible is not a book just of miracles to look back on and go, that was cool that God used to do that. No, the Bible is a book of miracles telling you that what God has done, he is still doing. He's still making a way out of no way. He's still moving mountains. He's still healing bodies. He's still delivering souls. He's still renewing minds. Come on, can I get an amen? Stand up on your feet and give God praise today. God is a miracle worker. It's what he does. I'm out of time. Stand up. If you need a miracle today, I want you to lift up both hands to heaven, not to me, to heaven. You're in a how moment right now, and I believe God can meet you in the how. Her asking how was not a lack of faith. She's just looking at her life going, I don't know how this is going to work, but God already had a plan. God has a plan for you.

God has a plan for your family. God has a plan for this year coming up. God already had a plan.