Christmas Prayers for When Life Feels Heavy

We're so thrilled you're here on all of our campuses, and before we jump into part three of the gift, I just wanted to take a few moments, let you know about some very exciting things that are happening right now in our church. Let me start off with our end of year giving initiative. We call it Heart for the House, and church, you have been so incredibly generous, but there's still time. If you haven't yet participated, I want to invite you before the end of the year to give your end of year gift to Heart for the House and help us make 2026 the most incredible year for our mission we've ever had. Come on and be a part of it before the end of the year. Just go to our website and click on the Heart for the House link. I also want to make sure that right now you're preparing your hearts for what we're going to be kicking off in January called 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting. I'll teach about it on January the 4th, and then on January 5th, we'll all be giving up something for spiritual purpose to engage more of our time in prayer for 21 days, and I want you to be thinking about it right now. What is it that you can fast from during those 21 days? We'll provide you with daily resources. We'll come alongside of you and encourage you. It's going to be a great start to 2026. And then finally, I just want to make sure that you're making your plans right now to join us for Christmas with Water's Edge Church and that your plans include your friends and family. Come on, this is a great opportunity to spread the word and to invite others to come and join you. And today, I want to make it so simple, in fact, I'd love for every single one of us today to participate in sharing the message and helping to fill our house for Christmas with Water's Edge. So, here's all you got to do. Right now, if you're on our campuses, would you get out your phone?

Come on, everybody participating, would you get out your phone online? You can just follow the link provided for you over in the chat, and with your phone now on campus, will you tap the seat back in front of you? Come on, it's that simple. Just tap the seat back in front of you, and when you do, it's going to lead you to an image that looks like this, it says, come sit with me at Christmas with Water's Edge Church. So, click the, or tap the sticker, and then go right here, and it's going to give you this beautiful image, and here's all you got to do, watch, I'm going to teach you something. You're going to hold down on it, just press down on it, it's going to take you here where you can click share, and the moment you click share, you can send this graphic to a friend as a digital invite. Just text it to them. I'm going to do it right now. I'd love it if you would do the same thing. I'm going to text a friend and invite them to come and sit with me at Christmas with Water's Edge. Would you do it right now? Come on, everybody participating, send it to a friend, and watch and see what God will do with a simple invite for Christmas with Water's Edge. I cannot wait for next weekend. It's going to be an incredible, incredible experience. But today, part three of our series called The Gift, and oh my goodness, you're in for a treat. It's going to be the best sermon of the whole series because you get to hear from my wife, the First Lady of Water's Edge Church. Come on, open your hearts, put your hands together, and let's welcome to the stage Tabitha Hodges. Well, welcome to all of you right here in Yorktown, in Newport News, in Virginia, in Virginia Beach, online, and our men at Indian Creek.

We are so honored that you're with us today. How cute were those kids on stage today? Oh my goodness, you guys have some cute kids. I mean, they're kind of crazy, but they're cute. Oh my goodness, and now, I don't know about you, but I am officially in the Christmas spirit. They got me there, y'all. I'm so excited. Well, this week, I have the privilege of concluding our three-part series called The Gift, which is based on the three gifts the Magi brought to Jesus to celebrate his birth. My husband has already taught you two of them. He's already taught you about gold and myrrh, and I know that those messages have already been really impactful for you, but honestly, since he chose those two messages to preach on, I'm really, really hoping that means that gold and perfume have been on his mind over the last couple weeks, and that I'm going to benefit from that over Christmas, y'all. Come on, ladies. I know we want a little gold or perfume for Christmas, don't we? Come on. But we also know that the Magi didn't just... bring two gifts. So today I have the privilege of teaching you about the third one and that's frankincense. And frankincense wasn't just any gift, it was unique, rare, precious, and incredibly valuable. Have you ever received a really unique gift? Well there's this trend going around on social media about a anthropology rock prank. It's where someone literally they go into their backyard and they pick up an old rock and then they wrap it beautifully and pretend that it's this stunning, artisan, one-of-a-kind, unique, hand-chiseled anthropology decor piece that cost hundreds of dollars and they give it to someone as a very high-end, special, unique gift. Now the person giving the gift and the person receiving the gift, well they're in on this prank, okay? But everyone else in the room, they have absolutely no clue and they're watching

this dramatic unveiling of this gift like, what on earth is so special about a rock? Well if you know anything about me, you know I love a good prank. And so over Thanksgiving, the girls and our family decided to play this prank on our son Brayden and Stu. And our daughters Taylor and Emma, they decided to give my daughter-in-law Chloe this very unique, very exclusive, very one-of-a-kind rock that we grabbed in our backyard. I mean that thing still had dirt on it y'all. And remember Chloe, my daughter-in-law, she's in on this and let me tell you that girl deserved an Oscar for her performance. When she opened the gift, she gasped and she clutched her chest and she was just overwhelmed, close to tears over the beauty of this anthropology rock that she desperately wanted. She was stroking that thing like it belonged in a museum y'all. And the look on Stu and Brayden's face was priceless. They were really confused, a little bit concerned and you could tell that Brayden was like really deeply questioning Chloe's taste in home decor. And Stu, now he was, he really couldn't believe that we spent hundreds of dollars on a rock. Now let me tell you those reactions, they'll live rent-free in my head for a really long time, okay. That unique rock meant something to Chloe, at least for the sake of the prank. And unique gifts, they stand out. Gold was expected, but frankincense? Nobody saw that one coming as a gift of honor to the newborn king. It was rare, it was costly, and it meant something to the Magi. And Matthew tells us actually what this moment that they presented it. And let me read to you how he describes that moment. It says, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose, and have come to worship him. When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people's chief priests and the teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. In Bethlehem in Judea, they replied, for this is what the prophet has written. But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out

from the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship. After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures... and presented him with the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. You see, these gifts, they weren't accidental. The magi didn't just grab something from the clearance aisle or throw a few random items from a Dollar Tree gift bag. Their gifts were intentional, and they were prophetic. Each one held a deep meaning for who Jesus was and for what He came to do. You see, frankincense came from the Boswellia tree, and the way that they harvested frankincense from this tree is they would slash it a couple times, and the tree would bubble up, the sap would bubble up, and it would harden into these little nuggets that could be used as perfume or incense. And I've read that it actually put off a sweet, citrusy scent, but here's the significance of frankincense. It was really a gift of worship. When the magi knelt before Jesus, they didn't just bring him frankincense, they brought him worship. Did you catch that in the scripture that we read

just a few minutes ago? The magi bowed down and worshiped him. And in the Old Testament, frankincense, it had a very special role, a very specific role. And the Bible says, then the Lord said to Moses, take fragrant spices, gum resin, Onika, and galbanum, and pure frankincense, all in equal amounts, and make a fragrant blend of incense, the work of a perfumer. It is to be salted and pure and sacred. You see, the priest would burn this incense before the Lord as part of their worship. The priests, they were mediators between God and his people. They would offer sacrifices, they would teach the law, they would perform rituals, they would pray on behalf of the people of Israel. And woven into all of that was incense. Incense made with frankincense. Frankincense wasn't just rare and valuable and unique. It was a symbol, a symbol of the prayers of the people. And when the priest burned frankincense, it represented the prayers being lifted up to God. The priest stood in the gap, carrying the needs, the griefs, the hopes, and the worship of the people before the Lord. And that rising incense was a picture. It was a reminder that God receives the prayers of his people. You see, frankincense represented the very thing that I believe many of us need right now.

With Christmas, it's just a few days away, y'all. Woo! And I know that many of you are sitting here with a long list of things that have to be done in the next week and a half. Oh yeah, I know. Presents that have to be wrapped, things that have to be baked, things that have to be delivered, people you need to spend time with. I know you're sitting here right now thinking through all of those things. But I'm telling you, if we don't slow down and pause for just a moment in this season, I'm afraid that we are gonna miss the moment of worship. A moment in the presence of the one who matters the most, Jesus. And a moment with the one who will hear our prayers. I know that if we will stop for just a moment, we will realize that Christmas isn't only lights and celebration. For a lot of us, it's where joy and sorrow, they sit right next to each other, don't they? If we stop for just a moment, we realize that we're hurting, we're grieving, we're hopeless and maybe just a little bit overwhelmed. And when life feels messy or heavy, prayer can feel messy or heavy too, especially this time of year. And the truth is, most of us don't always know

what to pray when life feels messy or heavy. We just say whatever comes to mind in the moment, right? A few summers ago, we were on vacation. Stu and I were wrapping up. little bit of time away, and we had to travel from that vacation to a trip where Stu had to speak at another church, and right before we were leaving, Stu was putting the cover on the boat, and it was a really hot day, it was blazing hot, y'all. And he bent over the back of the boat, and he was sweating, I mean, it was hot, it was the end of the day, and he bends over the back of the boat, and his glasses fall off and plop right into the water. His glasses fell straight to the bottom. And so he texts me and says, bring goggles and a paddle board. And I'm thinking, well, that's not a text you get every day. So I get down to the dock, and he explains that his glasses are now somewhere in the bottom of a muddy river. Cool, cool, okay, so let me get this straight. Your glasses are at the bottom of a river. You have to preach in 15 hours, and you didn't bring a backup pair of glasses. Great, so you can't drive, but even worse, you can't read your notes to preach. We've got a full-blown situation here, guys. And let me give you an idea of just how bad his vision is. If he were to hold his hand in front of his face,

it would be blurry, y'all. It's bad, we got a bad situation. He cannot see a thing. So he puts on the goggles, and he tries to dive down, but it's useless because it's muddy, and again, he doesn't have his glasses, so he can't see anything. So then he starts feeling around with his tiptoes because the water is up to his chin, so he's like doing this number, you know? And he's trying to move slowly, but I can see the panic starting to set in. My man, who is usually calm, the steady one in our marriage, is starting to unravel a little bit. And so he goes to the exact same spot that the glasses fell off, and he starts to search about a three-foot diameter all the way around, and he keeps searching and searching, and nothing. So I start praying, that's my contribution, I'm not getting in the water. And honestly, I didn't know what to pray. I was overwhelmed. A few weeks earlier, Stu had preached at student camp about the power of the name of Jesus. So in that moment, all I could get out was Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Three times, that's all I had. It's hot, y'all. And then I felt this nudge in my spirit

to tell him to go over to the piling on the side of the dock. Stu didn't wanna do this because the piling was covered in barnacles and slimy mud, y'all know what that's like. But you know us women, we like to just keep nagging until they do what we tell them to do, right? So I just kept nagging and nagging. And so finally, he walks over to the pile, and he didn't wanna do it, and he feels around with his foot, and there were his glasses. He picks them up, it was an absolute miracle, y'all. The current had swept his glasses away about five feet from where they dropped, but the piling actually stopped the glasses from flowing any further. I'm telling you guys, there is power in the name of Jesus. But here's what I want you to hear today. While yes, you can always call out the name of Jesus, you can also pray with intention. And in this season, I wanna teach you to pray with even more intention than I did in that moment. One of the greatest things that you can do is pray the promises of God. Jesus coming as a baby was the fulfillment of a promise made so much long before he even arrived. And now he has left promises in his word for us. So I wanna take a moment and acknowledge the real things that you're praying for this season. And with each prayer, we're gonna light a candle,

a small reminder of how the priest burned frankincense, and how the incense rose before God, just like our prayers can rise before him. And so the first prayer that we're gonna learn is a prayer. prayer for peace. Because some of you, even while you're celebrating, you're also aching. Grief shows up in so many ways, doesn't it? You can grieve the loss of a loved one, the loss of a friendship or relationship, the loss of a job, or even the loss of the way you thought life would look like right now. Grief can look so different for each and every one of us. And if you're anything like me, seasons like Christmas can make it even harder to find the words. Sometimes I don't know what to say to God. Christmas can be a reminder of what's missing, or sometimes even who is missing, of expectations that didn't happen, prayers that feel unanswered, or plans that didn't unfold the way you hoped. But here's what I love about scripture, it gives us promises every single time, and we can pray those promises. When you need peace, one of the most beautiful promises comes straight from the Psalms. Now, in this Psalms, David, he had been running for his life from King Saul. He had just escaped being captured by the Philistines.

He was exhausted. He was afraid. He was searching for his own peace. He was grieving what he thought his life should really be like. And in that place, God gives him promises. And later, David writes Psalm 34, as someone who has experienced God's faithfulness and his grief firsthand. Let's read it. He said, I prayed to the Lord and he answered me. He freed me from all of my fears. In my desperation, I prayed and the Lord listened. He saved me from all of my troubles. For the angel of the Lord is a guard. He surrounds me and defends all who fear him. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted. He rescues those whose spirits are crushed. The righteous person faces many troubles, but the Lord comes to rescue each time. For the Lord protects the bones of the righteous. Not one of them is broken. Calamity will surely destroy the wicked and those who hate the righteous will be punished. But the Lord will redeem those who serve him. No one who takes refuge in him will be condemned. Now listen, I cannot promise that you won't feel grief this season. Norah McHenry, an author who writes about grief, she puts it this way.

We don't move on from grief, we move forward with it. And grief isn't a sign of weakness. If you're feeling it, it's not a sign of weakness. It's the evidence that love mattered. But when we read this scripture, we realize that we are not in our grief alone and that we have a God who defends us, who listens, who saves us from our troubles, who rescues us when our spirits are crushed, and who is near to us when we are brokenhearted. And when you feel brokenhearted, you need a promise. So this year, I wanna teach you a prayer pattern that I think is really gonna help you. We're gonna speak the feeling out loud because feelings are not wrong. And then we're going to insert the word nevertheless, because nevertheless announces that no matter what I feel, God's promises are still true. So we're gonna say the feelings first and the promise second. So here's an example, it goes something like this. God, I'm really sad and lonely. I'm grieving some things. But nevertheless, God, you have promised just like you promised David that you are near to the brokenhearted. Thank you for being near to me. And that's our first prayer. That's our prayer for peace. Telling you I'm gonna help somebody today, right?

Now, the second prayer that we're gonna learn today is a prayer for pressure. And some of us are walking into Christmas carrying some pressures we never asked for. Pressure to hold everything together, pressure to be strong for everyone else, pressure to make the season feel perfect when everything else feels anything but. Pressure from work, from your finances, from uncertainty, from anxiety, from fear. from expectations, whether unspoken or unspoken. There's just something about this time of year that just ramps it up, piles it on, right? I mean, I don't talk to anybody in December who's like, la, la, la, la, la, I love December. It's so easy. I've got extra money. I don't know what to do with it this month. Year-end deadlines, man, they're a breeze. I love that. Got so much free time to prioritize everybody. I love this. Said no one ever in December, y'all. And so for some of you, the pressure that you're feeling, the holiday pressure is just the pressure on top of the pressure that you've been carrying all year long already. So much pressure that you can literally feel it in your chest. But that's why I love Paul's perspective

and the promise he gives us. He says this, we are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever. So we don't look at the troubles we can see now. Rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. Now let me tell you, Paul had some pressure. He's not writing from a spa weekend, y'all. He was shipwrecked, he was imprisoned, he was flogged, he was starving, he was betrayed, he was persecuted, you name it. He had some pressure, and yet he wrote us this promise. A promise that we might be pressed, but we are not crushed. A promise that we are perplexed, but we are not in despair. We may feel hunted down, but we are never abandoned. We may get knocked down, but we are not destroyed, y'all.

Our present troubles, they will not last forever. But when we focus on what will last forever, the things of God, his word, his love, his truth and grace, his promises, we will find the strength we need to keep carrying on. God, I feel the weight of expectations and responsibility to hold everything together, but nevertheless, you promised that I will not be crushed or abandoned. I will hold on to your promises. And guys, that is our promise for pressure. And the last prayer that we're gonna learn today is our prayer for hope. And some of us are stepping into the Christmas season with questions we can't answer, a future that we cannot see. Uncertainty tries to steal our hope, doesn't it? We don't know what's coming next, but we do know the one who goes before us. I know that many of you filled out a heart for the house card for 2026, and you wrote down what you were believing God for. And so many of us right now, we're really hopeful because a new year feels like a reset, spiritually, relationally, physically, and we're believing for healing, maybe reconciliation, for provision, for a spouse, for a baby, for a family member, for a job, for answers, and we are believing God to do what only he can do. And that hope is the anchor

that holds us steady while we wait. But even with God beside us, waiting can be hard, can't it? Has anyone in here ever had to wait for anything? I get it. I've had some waiting of my own. We struggled with infertility when we first got married. We had to wait. I've been praying for some things for my kids, and I have to wait. I had to wait. I've had health problems of my own, and I've had to wait, and I'm still waiting. I've been praying for some relationships to be restored, and I'm waiting, and I get it. And that's why, honestly, I'm just gonna be vulnerable right here. Sometimes I'm afraid to hope. Because, to be honest, I don't know that what I hope for will ever happen, if it'll ever come to fruition. But when hope has been postponed, we need something solid to hold on to, don't we? And that's why I love these promises from the Proverbs. It says, there is surely a hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off. Come on, that is a promise, y'all. And then this one reminds us that hope is a promise. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.

In other words, delays don't mean denial. Hard seasons, well, they're never the end of the story. And because Jesus came, we never have to wait without hope. Hope can renew our faith. If you allow it to, hope will grow in the soil of your waiting. You don't have to be afraid to hope again. At some point in your life, I can promise you, you've seen God move and fulfill a hope or a dream that you've had. And Proverbs says that those dreams that were fulfilled, they can give you lasting sustenance, purpose, and life for your future hopes. So we're gonna declare the feeling and state the promise again. God, I feel uncertain and anxious about what's next. Waiting is hard, but nevertheless, God, you have promised that my hope will not be cut off. Thank you for anchoring my soul and renewing my faith. And that is our prayer for hope. I hope that I'm teaching you something today. I've been praying all week that these candles would represent each and every one of you this week, that as we get closer to Christmas and that you would walk away today with some really practical prayers and promises that you can hold on to. Because as these prayers rise, just like frankincense, they don't rise to an empty sky. Frankincense didn't just picture prayers going up,

it pictured God bending low. The fragrance drifting through the temple was a reminder to God's people, you're not doing life alone. My presence is here. And let me tell you, presence, presence changes everything. The other night we were watching our grandbaby, Belle. She's so cute. And she was getting a little tired and a little fussy, nothing dramatic, just that quiet unsettledness, you know, that a baby has. And then Brayden, our son, he came home after his group and the second that he walked in the room, the atmosphere changed. Belle loves her Gigi and Pops, especially her Gigi. But nobody knows her like her mom and dad. They know her sounds, her needs, what comforts her, what worries her and what makes her happy. And when Brayden walked in the room and picked her up, she literally just melted into him. Her whole body relaxed. Why? Because of presence. The presence of the one that knows her the very best. The presence of the one that she trusts. The presence of the one who has never left her. And that, let me tell you guys, that is the gift of Christmas. Not that every one of these prayers will be answered instantly, not that every

situation will be fixed, but that you will never be alone in any of it. He is Emmanuel, God with us. Scripture says this, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they called him Emmanuel, which means God with us. Jesus is God with us. So when you look at the manger scene in your home, I just want you to pause for a moment. That sweet little baby is God with us. When the Magi came, they saw a toddler, but they came to worship Emmanuel, a different kind of king, a different kind of ruler, a different kind of hope. They came to honor the high priest, because the same God who became flesh and blood, he came to die for our sins, is the same God who promises to be with us right now. We no longer need a priest to take our prayers to God. Jesus is our high priest, the ultimate mediator between us and God. We don't have to wait for someone else to burn incense on our behalf. We can come to him ourselves. The Bible says, therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize, to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way. Just as we are, let us not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. We can come to Jesus with confidence, because he understands us. He's with us in our grief. He's with us in our troubles and our pressure. He's with us in our uncertainty. And I believe that somebody needs to hear this today. God is with you. Your circumstances may not change today, but his presence will change you in the light of it. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. There's so much power in his name today. He is our high priest. And that is Christmas. He is God with us. And so what I want to do today is give you just a few moments, just to sit in his presence and allow your prayers to lift up to him. But before we do that, I want to declare this promise over you. He is with you. Would you pray with me? God, we are just so incredibly grateful for your presence. Jesus, thank you that you are our high priest, that we can come to you directly with our fears, with our hopes, with our dreams, with the pressure, with our grief. God, thank you

that we can come directly to you and you will be with us in the middle of it all. And God, we claim your promises in your word that you are with us. And God, I just pray for each person in this room that this Christmas that they would be able to pause and take a moment to recognize who you are, to lift the prayers up to you, and to recognize that they don't have to do any of it alone. And God, if there's someone in this room right now that for the very first time realized that God was with them. That Jesus came here on earth to die for them so that they could spend eternity with you. God, I just pray that they would say this prayer with me in their heart. Jesus, I want to know you. I want my sin forgiven by you. I want to be made right with God in heaven through you. Come into my life and be my Lord and Savior. We love you, Jesus. We thank you so much for today. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Can we thank God for what he's done for us today?