Surprised by Christmas | Rick Atchley

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Well, Merry Christmas, everyone, and thank you for spending part of the Christmas season with us here at the Hills. If you're online, if you're in Dallas, in Keller, in West Fort Worth, North Richland Hills, I really, really am so grateful that we can be together in this most wonderful time of the year. Now, I realize that while it is the most wonderful time of the year, for many people, Christmas is filled with controversies. We have these debates about which way we should do Christmas, and I thought, you know, I'm a spiritual guide. I should step up and help answer some of these debates. So, we're gonna take a very important Christmas poll. I need you, every campus, even online, to participate by holding up your hand when I ask the question. For example, real tree or fake tree?

Who believes it should be a real tree? Hold up your hand. Who thinks it should be a fake tree? Okay. Here's the official answer. It doesn't really matter. Okay, as long as there are things you can use on a golf course under the tree, then your tree is just fine. Okay, the Grinch. Jim Carrey or cartoon Grinch? Hold up your hands for Jim Carrey. Hold up your hands for cartoon Grinch. God says the answer is cartoon Grinch. I'm sorry, but if you think Jim Carrey is the best Grinch, I'm glad you're here, and we're gonna offer prayer before you go home. Ham or turkey? Who says you should have ham for Christmas? Who says you should have turkey for Christmas? Everybody's wrong. The right answer was brisket, okay? We live in Texas. My grandmother made chicken fried steak for Christmas, okay? So let's reclaim our dignity as citizens of the Lone Star Lake and start having the right kind of food. Okay, Rudolph or Charlie Brown, the tough one. Hold up your hand. You'd rather watch Rudolph?

Hold up your hand if you wanna do Charlie Brown. Okay, I respect all of you, but the right answer is Charlie Brown Christmas because he quotes scripture at the very end, okay? Cyber Monday or last second Christmas shopping? Who likes Cyber Monday? Okay, good. Who likes to shop last second for Christmas? Okay, I don't wanna judge you last second shoppers. I have been in your shoes. All I get to say is I hope you kept the receipts because it's probably going back, okay? That's all I gotta say. All right, next question. Regular eggnog or spiked eggnog? You know, wait, wait, wait, wait. You know what? I don't wanna know. I don't want to know what you think about that. Finally, Merry Christmas or season's greetings? Okay, there's only one right answer here. It's gotta be Merry Christmas. And yet, a lot of people find that their merry really does vary this time of year. It's not so easy to have happy holidays. You might have heard the story about the mother got with her daughter, they're shopping at Christmas and I mean, the traffic is gnarled and the lines are long and the mall is crowded and the weather is miserable and her feet are hurting

and they're leaving an apartment store and she says to her daughter, did you see that nasty look that sales clerk gave me? And her daughter said, mama, he did not give you a nasty look. You had it when you came in. Just saying. Here's the truth. We don't get to choose if life will be messy. We get to choose if life will be merry. And that choice was made possible because at. Christmas, the world was surprised by joy. As we just heard a moment ago, an angel of the Lord appeared to them. The glory of the Lord showed around them and they were terrified, but the angel said to them, do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy. Not average joy, not everyday run-of-the-mill joy. The actual Greek word is mega. I bring you good news that will bring mega joy for all the people. It says they were terrified. In fact, you find this theme of fear a lot in the gospel accounts of the birth of Jesus, but you find something else. Seven different times you find a call to be joyful. Here's why. When Jesus came, joy came with him. Christmas is an invitation for us to live joyful lives, not fearful lives. Now, please understand, that doesn't mean that if you're a Christian, all your troubles and sorrows take a permanent holiday. That doesn't mean if you're a Christian, you put on a happy face and you fake being merry when life is really hard. Here's what it means. It means that you see and you interpret life through the lens of the coming of Jesus. That's not what most people do. They interpret life through the lens of their circumstances. And everything in my life is going well, then I have joy. And if everything is messed up, I lose my joy. See, here's the problem. You don't get to control life. There's a lot of things that are happening right now and gonna happen this coming year that you won't get to control. You don't even see them

coming. And if your circumstances are in control of how happy you can be, then your level of merry is constantly going to vary. But at Bethlehem, a capacity was birthed to enable us to live above what would normally take us under. Because when Jesus came, good reasons came with him to live with mega joy. One of those reasons is that God is above us. Oh shepherds, they had reasons to be fearful. They were ruled by a wicked king and they lived in a wicked world. And let's be honest, doesn't it sometimes feel like wicked people are still running the world and making it hard on all of us? And that's why we need Christmas. We need to hear again the announcement of the angel. There is a new king in town. There was a man some years ago named Christian Herder. He was the governor of the state of Massachusetts and he's running for re-election. It's a long day of campaigning, chasing votes. Late afternoon, he goes to a church barbecue. He gets in line. The lady gives him a piece of chicken. Now he's very hungry. He says, could I have another piece of chicken? He said, one per person. He said, but ma'am, I'm really starving. One per person. Now he's a meek man, but he decides it's time to throw my weight. He says, do you know who you're talking to? I am the governor of this state. She says, do you know who you're talking to? I'm the lady in charge of the chicken. Move on, mister. One reason we go to church is because it's good to be reminded who's in charge. Listen, Christmas is a direct challenge to dark powers, be they visible or invisible. What God launched at Bethlehem guarantees that all current tyrannies are short lived. All the Herod's then and all the Herod's today won't be in control much longer. The one who came to a manger is now sitting on the throne, and it will not be overthrown. Here's what that means. Even though it feels like it sometimes, the world's messy, but this universe is never really out of control. God is above us, and I can choose Mary when I remember nothing going on around me changes the fact God is above me, and he's on the throne. And that's when my joy can last, because it's so... in an everlasting King He's on the throne doesn't want me to do life on my own and that's another reason we can have joy

Not just that God's above us, but God is with us. This is the great promise of Christmas That this God who's above us does not want to be known long Distance and since we couldn't enter his world He came to ours The angel said that Joseph the Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel now, here's what that means God with us. Please notice it does not mean God was with us You sang it just a moment ago Joy to the world the Lord is Come He's not just real He's real close Now I Get to spend Christmas Day with my grandkids It will be wonderful. It will be crazy the next day after all the grandkids leave I Will be like FEMA. I will walk through my house and survey the destruction and decide What can be saved or what just has to be thrown away and my four little grandbabies. We have two toy nativity scenes that they love and they Especially love baby Jesus. I have my oldest is named Sadie She's three years old and she is always grabbing baby Jesus But it never dawns on Sadie that maybe we should put baby Jesus back where we found him In other words, he'd never at the manger. He's all over the place. I have found baby Jesus on the couch. I Have found Jesus under the table in our kitchen. I have found Jesus on the bed I've seen Jesus under the tree two-story I went to our bathroom in our bedroom and I look and there in the trash can by the toilet was Jesus looking at me Here's the point God is with us We can't be anywhere where Jesus isn't with us So joy doesn't leave because Jesus never left

He has sent his spirit to live inside His disciples. Here's what that means That means no matter what I'm going through no matter how messy my life can get. There's not a moment Where I cannot have a sacred encounter with God And I don't have to live in fear of What's going on around me Because my joy comes from who is living inside me I Can choose Mary even when it's messy because after all Christmas is I was chosen first and That's the best most mega good news This God who's above us as God who's with us this God is for us In nothing robs joy More than this thought that God is not for me He's usually upset with me and I need to work harder at seeing if I can change that And by the way, there's some legitimacy to this fear Because the scripture says that we have all sinned and Fallen short of the glory of God now another way of saying that is we've all screwed up We know it and heaven knows it But Christmas declares we still matter to God It was whispered in a manger it was shouted on a cross See Jesus was born for a purpose When we sin we cut ourselves off from God God is a source of life The wages of sin is death. We should die Jesus came With a body fully God, but fully man. He lived this sinless life See, I cannot take the penalty you deserve on myself. I have sinned too But Jesus did not Sin is when I put myself where God ought to be

and salvation Is when God said I will put myself where you ought to be and he goes to the cross and He says it finished. Everything that needs to be done so that we can be reconciled to God has been done in Jesus. Maybe this illustration will help. I made all A's in high school except for one B in typing class. Not that I'm bitter, it cost me a scholarship. Not that I'm bitter, I'm over it. But everyone under 40 is saying, why would you take typing in high school? It's hard for you to understand that back in the dark ages when I was young, if you wanted to put an idea on paper you use something called a pen or a pencil. And typing was this machine you learned in high school before you went to college and it had a keyboard with letters and numbers and you punched a button down and a metal arm came up and it hit an ink ribbon and it made an indention in the paper with a letter or a number or maybe it was hieroglyphics. It was a long time ago. That all sounds great, right? Except what if you hit the wrong key? I mean it's there in ink. Indented into that paper. Some of you can remember what we had to do. Roll that paper up and get this little bottle called liquid paper. And we'd get that brush out and we'd dab it on there and we'd blow on it and try to get it dry and then we'd try to roll it back down just right and hit the right key so that we could turn in our term paper or that contract we were wanting to sign. Here's the problem. That professor could look at that paper and that scab was still on that paper. It was pretty clear you did your best but it's obvious you screwed up. And a lot of you think that's how God is. He hadn't forgotten. You did your best to cover it up but God knows exactly you messed up. Can I just tell you something? God doesn't use a typewriter. You know what God does when you mess up and you're covered in the blood of Jesus? He hits delete key. And there's no evidence he remembers it no more. God is not making a list and checking it twice. God is nailing that list to a cross and remembering it no more. The scripture says God is for us. He did not spare his own son but gave

him for us all. God gave up his son for us. So we can give up the joy-sucking life of trying to cover up what we've done wrong. Instead we can just embrace the mega love of God. And people who do that, they are filled with this surprising and sustaining joy. Now there's a popular Christmas program that I think subtly makes this point. It's not a Christian program but it has a Christian message. And it is of course the story of the Grinch. You remember the story? The Grinch hated Mary. He despised joy. And like most he was convinced it was your outward circumstances that was the source of joy. So he thought I'm gonna steal Whoville's joy. He gets his sled and his dog Max and in the middle of night he goes down and he steals all the presents and the food. And he goes back up on the mountain trumpet. He's gonna dump it but he says I can't help myself. I've just got to hear their joylessness. I got to hear them cry. I got to hear them sob. I've stolen their joy. So he goes to a place and leans over to listen. And he did hear a sound rising over the snow. It started in low. Then it started to grow. But the sound wasn't sad. Why this sounded merry. It couldn't be so. But it was merry. Very. He stared down at Whoville. The Grinch popped his eyes and he shook. What he saw was a shocking surprise. Every who down in Whoville, the tall and the small were singing without presents at all. He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming. It came. Somehow or other it came just the same. And the Grinch with his Grinch feet ice-cold in the snow stood puzzling and puzzling. How could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled till his posture was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas perhaps means a little bit more? you'll remember that the sled starts to go over the mountain and the Grinch goes and he grabs that sled and something happens inside the Grinch and his heart grows three sizes that day and What the Grinch learns is the joy that you have that last

Doesn't come from anything you can put in a bag It comes from inside You See what The Christian faith teaches Is the joy it doesn't come from presence it comes from a presence You will not find lasting joy wrapped in decorative paper But wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in a major When Jesus came He brought the Mary in the middle of the messy and when he comes again He's going to deal with the messy once and for all Joy is coming back to stay This is our hope this is our faith He is going to return and he's going to reverse the curse and sin will have no power death will have no presence Sorrow, I have no place and King. Jesus will have no rival this this is mega good news and a reason to rejoice no matter what and it's why We keep the lights on All over the world in every language imaginable People like you and me who believe in Jesus are gathering together and They're lighting candles And that's what we're going to do in a minute after I say a prayer some people are going to take their places and start Lighting candles and you could turn to your neighbor and light their candle. And yes, it's beautiful But we don't do it for a photo op We do it to make a statement The best way I could explain that true story an elderly woman terminal cancer It was probably her last Christmas And her granddaughter asked at a service just like this grandma Why do we light candles at Christmas and she said?

we light candles To declare to the darkness We beg to differ We declare that the future belongs to King Jesus and We are going to wait for him with joy Let's pray God thank you for sending Jesus Born of a virgin placed in a manger raised in Nazareth Recruited disciples taught the peoples falsely accused and crucified Placed in a tomb that's now empty risen ascended reigning and coming back And So while we wait in the middle of this messy Help us to see life through the lens of the truth about Jesus Come quickly Lord Jesus we are Waiting with joy Amen