Surprised by Salvation | Surprised by Christmas | Rick Atchley

Welcome to the hills. My name is Rick. And for a long time, it's been my privilege to be the lead teaching minister of the Hills Church. And I'm delighted you've joined us, whether you're online or you're in person at one of our four campuses in North Richland Hills or Dallas Keller or West Fort Worth. I hope you are enjoying and entering the Christmas season with a lot of joy. If you're having trouble feeling it, I've got a couple of things to say today that are going to put you in a much better mood. One, four weeks ago, we launched our harvest offering season. Our goal was to raise $3.324 million to support 29 missionaries and 20 church plants. Would you see where we are as of last Friday, folks? We've met the goal. We have passed our goal. And that number will grow because many still plan to give. I want to thank you for that. It's a joy to say to all of the people we partner with, everything we promised you for 2026 is coming your way. And they're going to see people come to Christ. And you know what happens when that happens? Your bank account in heaven gets bigger. Jesus said, put your treasures in heaven. And I don't want anyone to miss out on that blessing. So if you haven't participated yet, be a part of what God is going to do with the monies that we're using around the world to spread the name of Jesus and receive that eternal blessing. Now, I hope that gets you in a very good mood, but I've got something that's going to help even more. I want you to meet my newest granddaughter, Annie, actually. And I'm telling you, if you're not eager for Christmas now, you deserve a bag of switches.

You really do. I love Christmas. You can't start Christmas too early for me. You can't have too much of it. And one thing I like about Christmas, the way I'm wired, I know it's coming. I know what day it's going to be. I have a lot of time to get ready for it. But Jamie would say that I don't like surprises and spontaneity, and I don't think that's true. I don't mind surprises as long as they're scheduled. And I don't mind spontaneity as long as it is thought through and really well planned, okay? But the truth is, many of the greatest joys of my life were complete surprises. I had no idea when I moved into a house with five other guys in college that a young woman from San Antonio named Jamie Leiter was going to move into a house across the street with five girls. That's how we met. I didn't orchestrate that. What a delightful surprise. Or I wasn't expecting a call from this church many years ago to come be the new preacher. I couldn't manipulate that. But what a blessing it's been. The first time I ever had a supernatural encounter with the Holy Spirit was a complete surprise. I wasn't expecting it. I wasn't seeking it. And it's changed my life. Now I'm not surprised when I hear the voice of the Lord. I sure was the first time. Or when my wife walked into my office, we'd been married 12 years, we'd never been able to get pregnant.

Doctor said it couldn't happen, and she said she was. I certainly wasn't expecting that. In fact, I had stopped praying a prayer for her to get pregnant about five to seven years earlier. But what a joy Matthew's been to me and Jamie and Michael and Morgan. Some of the best things in my life were total, complete surprises. You see, the God we worship is always surprising His children, and I think nothing makes that more clear than the Christmas story. So what we're going to do this month is just go back and look at that story from the lens of the surprising God who was revealed in Bethlehem. You see, if you have a Bible, it probably has two sections, an Old Testament and a New Testament. And that Old Testament ends with the book of Malachi, and you turn a page or two, and you start the New Testament in the book of Matthew. What you need to know is those two pages you turned represent Jesus. a gap of about 400 years. For four centuries, heaven has been silent. Now that doesn't mean God wasn't working, it means no one had an idea what he was up to, and there was no expectation that anything was about to change. No one in the Christmas story we tell every year had any idea what was about to happen. Here's my point, Christmas caught the world by surprise. Now we have told this story so long and so often that I think it's possible for us to hear the narrative and not be awed by it. We've lost the capacity to be shocked by the Christmas story. I promise you, every single person you put on your Nativity scene was completely surprised by the story we tell every December. Like Mary, she was not expecting a conversation with an angel, and she certainly wasn't expecting that conversation to say, you will be pregnant before you have ever slept with a man. That was a pretty big surprise. And Joseph is equally surprised to learn that the love of his life is pregnant, and he's not the father. And I tell you what else is a surprise, their decision to make a 90-mile trip on a donkey to Bethlehem when your wife's about to give birth. You don't plan that!

They weren't expecting that Edith to come from Rome and make that decision. And when they got to Bethlehem, they weren't expecting their birthing room would be a stable. Some shepherds are out in the field, and they're not expecting a birth announcement, and certainly not from an angel choir. Completely surprised. Mary wasn't expecting a knock on her door, and she opens it, and there's some foreign dudes, and they're bringing gifts, and they get down on their knees and worship her baby. She didn't see that coming. And she didn't see coming the day Joseph said, honey, I had a dream last night. Pack your bags. We've got to leave this country as fast as we can. See what I mean? Everything about the Christmas story was a surprise, and maybe the most surprising thing of all. And nobody saw this in any faith in the world in that day. That God would come to earth, and somebody would need to change his diapers. Christmas reminds us that God will not remain in the boxes we like to build for him. And God doesn't follow the scripts we like to write. He's always surprising his children. And maybe the biggest surprise is the way he adopts us to be his children in the first place. What I wanted to do in this first teaching is just to remind you that one of the most surprising things about the Christian faith is what we believe about salvation. And it was all first shadowed at Christmas. For example, just the need for salvation surprised many. See, most people think I need some repairing. No, Christmas says you don't need repairing, you need redeeming. Christmas isn't just saying that Jesus came, it is saying Jesus had to come. The angel surprised Joseph in a dream and said this, your wife will give birth to a son, and you're to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. See, his name is his mission. But it wasn't the mission many then or now were expecting. They're surprised by it, they think it's unnecessary, and frankly some people think it's rather offensive. We don't like the word sin. Why? Because sin implies moral absolutes. Sin implies there is a standard of truth you did not meet, and that makes you guilty. And if you are guilty, you deserve to be punished. Christmas is suggesting that none of us is good enough, that someone had to come and be good for us. And so we find ways to reframe the mission of Jesus

so we don't have to use the word sinner. When my son Michael was three years old, I invented a game to help him with his coordination and dexterity and it was a game where I would bounce a ball to him and he would catch it with two hands and he would bounce it back to me and we called the game doofus goofus and whoever dropped the ball was a doofus goofus and of course I would always drop the ball a few times on purpose so he could laugh and say that is a doofus goofus but inevitably at some point Michael would drop the ball and I would say Michael is a doofus goofus no no no no that was a mistake that doesn't count because that was a mistake and this is what we do we don't see ourselves as sinners we see ourselves as mistakers and this is the this is the faith of most people I'm not saying I'm perfect I've made some mistakes I do think I'm better than most of people I know and if there is a heaven I should go there because I've only made a few mistakes you see mistakers don't need forgiveness they just need other people to get over it mistakers just need to try a little harder they need a cheerleader not a redeemer so it should not be surprising that if we don't want to see ourselves as sinners in need of salvation but mistakers who just need another chance we're going to reframe the mission of Jesus and so we worship therapist Jesus who helps us cope with our problems and tells us not to be too hard on ourselves we celebrate touchdown Jesus he's the reason we won the game and why we can always count on outscoring our competition or philanthropist Jesus who if we wait and act nice will give us what we want or life coach Jesus who encouraged us to reach our full potential or especially popular today is moral guru Jesus who wants us to play nice with others that's the kind of Jesus mistakers love to worship because I'm okay and you're okay we just need to try a little harder why Christmas if I'm okay and you're okay why was there a need for Christmas see because we make light of sin we forget that God is perfect light and that means he can't just get over it when he comes to darkness a perfect God's holy and just and only response to sin is wrath we don't like that word either if I ever talk about the wrath of

God inevitably somebody gets offended so why do I talk about it because if I don't I think God would get offended it is an insult to the character of God to say that he could create a beautiful world and he could put his image bearers in it that he loves so much and then you can pollute it and you can oppress it and you can wreck it and he's just supposed to get over it no God is right to judge sin sin is real sin is real deadly and we really need to be saved from our sins the great evangelist EM Stearns was preaching in Philadelphia a lot about the cross of Christ and the need to be washed and someone said why do you talk so much about that Jesus why can't Jesus just be a good example and a teacher would you follow him if he what I'd preach that yes I would you would do what he said yes I would the first thing you need to know is he never sinned can you do that well no of course not of course I sin and Stearns wise he said friend your first and greatest need is not an example it's a Savior listen to me a person is not a Christian because they emulate the moral teachings of Jesus to be a Christian is to acknowledge your need to be washed in the blood of the Lamb so that you can be saved from your sins his name is his mission and we don't get to change either and as shocking as that mission is for its expense it's just as shocking for its expanse That's another big surprise foreshadowed at Bethlehem, that this salvation God was offering was so broad. The scope of salvation was such a surprise. See, one of the most intriguing and unique truths of the Christian faith is that God's adoption offer is for everybody, not just the somebodies. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All are infected, but all are invited to Jesus. Now Matthew makes this point in some interesting ways. He makes the point by beginning with the genealogy of Jesus, and the first big shock is he puts women in that genealogy. No one did that, and not just any women, but every woman in that genealogy is associated with some kind of scandal. Matthew's making a point about who's invited to Jesus. In fact, Matthew himself is a scandal, a tax collector telling people good news. But the way that Matthew introduces this principle the best, I think, is a way that we often miss. He talks about some

men who traveled a long, long way, probably from Persia, to come and see this new child. Now, in the first place, they're Gentiles. That means they're not a part of the covenant people of God. Just traveling through Palestine was to get stares of scorn. And not just that, but apparently they were astrologers. They tried to understand divine truth by reading stars. Now, the Old Testament is absolutely clear that God is against that. They show up to be a part of this story, and here's what it says in Matthew. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. I promise you, all of Matthew's Jewish readers, and most were, were totally shocked when they read that line. Christmas is heaven's invitation for outsiders to become insiders. I've said every Christmas for many years, the best-known verse in the Bible is John 3 16. For God so loved the world that whoever believes in him wouldn't perish but have eternal life. And that the best word in the best-known verse is whoever. We are all citizens of Whoville, and you should never be surprised at who God is willing to adopt. It's a time of year when we like to watch our favorite Christmas movies, and we have heated debates about which movie is the best Christmas movie, or is Die Hard even a Christmas movie? I'll settle the debate. It is, OK? Get over it, OK? But in the top three of all-time Christmas movies, you've got to put Miracle on 34th Street, and not the remake, I'm talking the black-and-white original. And I've watched that movie several times, and one of my all-time favorite scenes, I didn't catch the first few times I watched it what the storyteller was really implying. Now, let me set the context. A man is claiming that he's Kris Kringle, the real Santa Claus, and at the last second he steps in for a drunk Santa to be the Macy's Day Parade Santa, and he does so well, they hire him the next day to be their Santa in the store. And a little girl comes to see Santa. You can see her picture here, and she is very furtive, and you can tell. The woman who brings her says she's from Rotterdam, and she just arrived. We adopted her, and well, she saw you in the parade, Santa Claus, and begged to come see you. She doesn't speak English, and you could tell the the woman is absolutely terrified that this poor

little girl is about to receive more rejection. And then he starts to speak in her language. He starts to speak Dutch, and you can see in the next picture she is so happy. And I said that I missed what was going on behind the scene, but no one watching that movie when it appeared in 1947 would have missed it, because our parents and great-grandparents were still very much recovering. from the horror of World War II. Remember what that woman said? She's from Rotterdam. Rotterdam was destroyed by the Nazis. She said she's an orphan because her parents were killed in the war. This little eight-year-old girl has seen more trauma in her eight years than anyone deserves in a lifetime. She's lost her home, she's lost her parents, now she's in a strange land living in a house with somebody she doesn't know and she can't speak the language. And the last thing she needs is more rejection. And what does Santa do? He welcomes her and brings her joy. This is what Matthew is saying Christmas is about. This is what Jesus said, that all those the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never drive away. God's invitation list to celebrate his son's birthday was so surprising, but even more surprising was how he planned to pay for the party. This might be the most stunning and shocking thing about what we believe regarding salvation that was foreshadowed at Christmas. And that's just the way God plans to forgive us of our sins. You understand, every religion has a get right with God plan. Every religion does. Every religion says you've got to build a bridge of God and here's how you do it. Now they give you different tools.

One might say pray more prayers and one might say give more alms and one might say do more ritual and one might say bring more offerings, but they all say here's the tools to build your bridge to get right with God. And it reminds me of a story I love to tell at Christmas time. The grandma that was too old to travel and be with her family for Christmas. She didn't know what they wanted. She decided I'm going to send money to everybody and they can go get what they want. So she went to the bank and she got a lot of cash and she put it in piles for each member of the family and she bought envelopes and she addressed them and she wrote a note inside all of them and she mailed them and to her whore, Christmas morning, she sees all those stacks of cash. She forgot to put the money in the cards. So Christmas day her family opens their cards, buy your own gift grandma. This is what religion does. You see, the most surprising truth of Christmas is you cannot build a bridge to God. God is going to have to build a bridge for you. Now remember Matthew's readers almost all are Jewish people. They had a way to build a bridge. They had a get right with God plan. They'd been doing it for centuries. You go to the temple, you take a lamb, you take a goat, you make yourself right with God. What they didn't understand, it wasn't a plan. It was just pointing to the plan. So the Hebrew writer says chapter 10, it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. And therefore when Christ came into the world, he said sacrifice an offering you did not desire but a body you prepared for me. With burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. We needed a bridge and we can build it.

Do you know that's God's greatest challenge? I don't know if you ever think about God having challenges. And by the way, creating a universe was not a challenge to God. Dealing with an angel rebellion, that was not a challenge to God. Here's God's biggest challenge. How is he going to stay in relationship with his image bearers and his beloved children when they are dark and he's perfect light? How's that going to happen? When you turn your back on God and cut yourself off from God because he's life, you die. The wages of sin is death and only man could pay that penalty. Only God had the capacity to pay it because he's perfect light and not sin. Man should pay it, only God could pay it. What you going to do? And in a wisdom that only God possesses, he conceived the answer. He was conceived. God became flesh. The God-man came to us. He became one of us to save all of us because the answer to God's greatest challenge couldn't be spoken. It had to be spoken. So, listen again to Hebrews, and then Jesus said, here I am, it's written about me in the scroll, I have come to do your will, my God. And by that will, we've been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Our minds are too feeble to understand what Jesus emptied Himself of, to become a baby. He left the perfectness of heaven for the fallenness of earth. He left the riches of glory to grow up in absolute poverty. The name that was above every name grew up in a no-name town with no-name family. We can't fathom how much He gave up to come to that manger. But if that manger was as far as He came, we would still die in our sins.

He would not have come far enough to save. Amos could not preach our sins away. Aaron couldn't sacrifice them away. Moses couldn't legislate them away. Miriam could not dance enough, and Jeremiah could not weep enough, and David could not worship enough, and Daniel could not pray enough. Christmas rebukes, every build-your-own-bridge plan there is. Only the second Adam could save the first. And on that cross where Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied. It was a bridge that no one saw coming except the One who built it. Some years ago, I read a story about a father and son that I found to be very sad. You can see their picture. This is Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Jr., and his son, Elmo Zumwalt III. The Admiral was a decorated war hero from World War II. In 1968, he was given command of naval activities in the Vietnam conflict. One of the problems, the jungle was so thick that the riverboats could be ambushed because you could not see the enemy by the bank. And so Admiral Zumwalt made a decision to spray the land with a defoliant called Agent Orange, to kill the vegetation, to give his naval officers time to see where the enemy was. And one of those riverboat captains was his son. And shortly after the war, his son contracted a very aggressive kind of lymphoma. So did one of his children. His son died at age 42, and his father is convinced that his decision to battle the enemy the way he did cost him his son. And he had no idea that would be the cost. He had no idea that would be the price. God did. Christmas was not a last-minute brainstorm session by the Trinity. As soon as man sinned, God announced a rescue mission was on the way, and the cost didn't

catch him off guard. Earth didn't see it coming, but Christmas did not catch heaven by surprise. Listen to Paul, for God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this not because we deserved it, but because that was His plan from before the beginning of time, to show us His grace through Jesus Christ. When you hear grace through Jesus Christ, you hear God made a bridge. And now, He's made all of this plain to us by the appearing of Christ Jesus, not our coach, not our therapist, our Savior. He broke the power of death and illuminated the way to life and immortality through the good news. The wages of sin is death. Death had to be defeated. Jesus understood the mission. He knew where the mission would take him and he chose to go where he did not belong so that you could go where you do not deserve. And I hope we never get so familiar with this story that we lose the wonder of it. Have I preached this story so many times? And have you heard it so many times that it no longer has the capacity to just put you on your knees in awe? Christmas is history's greatest surprise. And now I want to close by making a plea. I haven't made this strong since Baptism Sunday, but I feel conviction to do it. I think it's wrong to preach about salvation and then not make it clear that today's the day to get saved. Some of you listen to me right now online at every campus. You need a bridge. You're not a mistaker, you're a sinner. You need a new bridge. A man came to Jesus one time, religious, moral, if anyone could build a bridge it would have been him. Here's what Jesus told him, I assure you no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life. It's the Holy Spirit that gives birth to spiritual life. So don't be surprised when I say you must be born again. The early Christians understood this to happen when you were baptized. That you were placed under water just like Jesus was buried in the earth, and you came up in the power of

the Spirit just like he was resurrected. And it was your way of declaring, God I receive the bridge. And we're going to offer that opportunity today. Because listen to me, I don't want a single person at a single campus to walk to their car today and wonder, have I been saved from my sins? Pastor, I wasn't expecting to get saved today. Well God was. He knew you were coming. He's not surprised you're here. And Christmas is God saying, I've always wanted to adopt you. So don't act so surprised. It's a day of salvation. So let's pray. Father I'm praying now, every person at every campus and online, that we will be honest and agree with you, confess our sins. That means we agree with you that we're sinners. We agree with you that we've fallen short of your standard. We agree with you that trying harder is not what you want. We agree with you that accepting what you have offered in your Son Jesus is what you seek. So we confess Jesus today, God, as Savior. Savior of the whole world. And my prayer is today, the Holy Spirit will work in a heart who's confused or concerned about their sins. And they would go today relieved because Jesus has forgiven them. This is what I pray in His name. Amen.