Wise Men Still Seek Him

and the blessing of the Lord and the love of God and God's people for them Thank you, God, for giving us all the infinite time and the power that we have to fight against the leaders present We serve you as your anointed church and entrusted by church unto you for life. For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where Christ was to be born. They told him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet. And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem saying, go and search diligently for the child. And when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him. After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was.

When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way. This is the word of God from the people of God. You guys may be seated. Well, that was Raya, my third and final daughter who turned 18 this week, which means that I officially only have one child left in my house. That is my son, Aden, who turned 16 this coming Thursday. That's right, he was born on Christmas Day, which by the way, please pray for him if you will. It's hard enough to be a pastor's kid. He also shares a birthday with Jesus. So, but from our family to yours, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. One of the most iconic scenes in the Christmas story is this moment in Matthew two, when wise men from the east show up to worship Jesus because of a mysterious star that they had seen in the western sky. And I hate to mess up your nativity sets, but there's really no biblical evidence that there were only three of them.

People assume there were three because three gifts were given to Jesus. And so we figure each gift was carried by one man, but the story never says that there were three. In fact, there are strong reasons to believe that the group would have been much larger than three. First, scholars say bands of magi or wise men or philosophers in those days typically traveled in schools of at least a dozen, and each one would have brought along a cadre of wives and children and servants, which would make this group at least 60 to 70 people strong. Plus, in verse three, Matthew tells us that when the wise men came to Jerusalem, it troubled the whole city. Three guys sauntering in on camels are not going to have gotten the attention of an entire city, whereas a dozen Saudi prince-looking guys with huge entourages certainly would have gotten their attention. All that to say, it's probably safe to assume this was a rather large group. And I know, I know that messes up your nativity scene because you don't have room for 60 or 70 little wise men figurines. So let me just go ahead and mess it up even further. There is no possible way that these wise men would have been present at the manger scene anyway. You see, Matthew says in verse one of chapter two

that these guys started their journey from afar when Jesus was born, a journey that would have taken several months. Verse 11 says, in fact, that they visited Jesus at his house, not at the manger. Furthermore, the word that Matthew uses in verse nine to describe Jesus at the time of their visit is the word toddler, not infant. So if you want your nativity scene to be biblically accurate, you gotta put the wise men, not by the manger, but across the room to show that they began their journey on the night that Jesus was born. And I know, I know I probably just created a bunch of arguments in some households because one spouse is gonna be like, well, we really should make our nativity biblically accurate and the other is like, just put the daggum wise men in the manger like everybody else and stop listening to our pastor and his Christmas decoration. and hot takes, okay, but that's the best I can do. One of the things that is 100% accurate in your nativity sets is that it was three men who brought gifts, and we know that because if it had been three wise women, they A, would have arrived on time, they would have known you cannot show up with baby gifts two years after the kid is born,

and B, they would have brought more practical gifts like food and diapers and formula, not gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They would have cleaned up that stable right on up and Mary would have had some nice warm blankets. Amen, ladies? All right, that is probably not the main takeaway from this passage. Here's the main question we should be asking from this story. How did these wise men know to come to Jerusalem looking for Jesus? They weren't Jews. They hadn't been raised on the stories of the Messiah. Matthew tells us, chapter two, that they'd seen a strange star in the western sky that pointed them toward Jerusalem. Now, stars are not typically the way that God reveals himself to people. In fact, searching for signs from God and the stars, a practice called astrology that was very common in the ancient world is specifically condemned in Deuteronomy 18. So why then would God lead a band of professional astrologers, people who were raised in a false religion? Why would he lead them to himself through a star? Well, there is a fascinating little detail in this story that we often overlook. Matthew tells us that these wise men are from the east,

which meant Persia, which was the place that Israel had been sent into exile in the days of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, some 500 years before this all takes place. And if you recall from our study of Daniel, a couple of years ago, when King Nebuchadnezzar took the Israelites captive from Babylon, took them into Babylon there in Persia, he had placed Daniel and several other young Hebrew captives into the school of the wise men to try and enculturate them in Babylonian ways. And at first, these wise men were Daniel's mortal enemies. They were the ones that got him thrown into the lion's den. But eventually, Daniel won a bunch of them over and undoubtedly, Daniel would have shared with them the writings of Moses, which would have been kept in the library of the wise men in Babylon and then Persia and passed down to future generations of wise men. Those writings were filled with prophecies about the coming Messiah. And one of those prophecies reads like this. Numbers 24, 17, a star will come out of Jacob and a scepter, which was the symbol of a king that will arise out of Israel. Now, Jewish biblical scholars said that star was not meant to be read literally. They said that it meant a leader who shines like a star. But the wise men read that verse completely literally. So when they saw the strange star appear over Israel,

they said, that must be it. The star over Jacob that this book of numbers that Daniel gave us, that star is the sign of their king. You say, well, in doing that, was God thereby validating astrology? No, what you're seeing is that God meets people where they are. In fact, write this down. God still puts stars into our lives, signs that get our attention and quietly point us back to him. Friend, he meets you where you are. He enters even your mess and your confusion and put small signs there to get your attention. And I am quite confident that for many of you, that if you actually slowed down and looked honestly at your own life this weekend, you could see some of those very stars right now. For some of you, it's come through something unexpectedly good, a provision you cannot quite explain, a door that opened just at the right moment, a blessing, maybe even a miracle that made you pause and think that didn't feel accidental. Now you may not have recognized it as God, but it could certainly be a star. For others of you, it's been the opposite, a hard season that you just didn't see coming, a diagnosis you were not prepared for, a job you lost, a relationship that is unraveling. I would not call that good,

and I would not wish that upon you, but it can still be a star. In fact, C.S. Lewis once said, God whispers to us in our pleasures, but shouts to us in our pain. I've known people who never gave God a second thought until. until everything fell apart. Suddenly they were listening. Maybe that's you this weekend. For some of you it's come through discovery or wonder in science or biology or just the sheer complexity of the world. You've gotten a sense that reality is bigger than the result of a collision of matter and random chance. In fact, I once heard Elon Musk, who clearly isn't a Christian. I think we can all agree on that. I heard him say, the universe is the answer. Now we gotta figure out what the question is. Again, you may not agree with everything Elon says, but that is profound. He is expressing something that scientists from Albert Einstein to Isaac Newton to Francis Collins have all recognized. It's almost like the universe itself is calling out to us saying, come on, look closer. There's more here. That too can be a star. For others of you, it's harder to name

just a quiet sense that something isn't right, that something's missing, even if you can't articulate what it is. Or maybe it's simply this book. The sense that it's more than quaint fairy tales, that there's more to it. There's mystery, there's truth, there's authority, there's divine wonder. Listen, friend, if that is you, it may not be an accident that you're here right now. That invitation you received, that decision to come this weekend, the fact that something in this moment feels oddly personal, from the beginning of this service, something has been nudging you, not forcing, not pressuring, but calling, drawing, inviting. Friend, that's a star. That's what God does. In grace, he meets people where they are, and then he invites them further in. He invites them to come to Jerusalem and look. Interestingly, that star that God provided those wise men could only bring them partway. Did you notice that? Could only bring them to Jerusalem, but from there, they had to consult the scriptures in order to complete their journey. Verse one says that when they got to Jerusalem, they asked King Herod where the Christ child

was to be born, and Herod, who wasn't really a Bible guy himself, he didn't know. So he, verse four, assembled all the priests and the scribes of the people, and he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They said, well, dummy, in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it's written by the Old Testament prophet Micah, the Christ child will be born in Bethlehem. Now, there's a profound symbolism at work in this also. Stars and signs and spiritual questions are never in themselves enough to bring you fully to God. They can get you looking the right direction, but only the scriptures can complete your journey. This book, friend, this, this is the gateway to God. And that is why at this church, every single week, somebody like me stands up here, opens this book, reads from it, and teaches straight out of it. I am not up here telling you about my relationship with God or giving you my insights into spiritual life. I am attempting to open up to you the scriptures week by week, which are God's guide to salvation, regardless of who you are or where you're coming from. Verse 11, I love the reaction of the wise men when they finally see Jesus. Going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and they worshiped him. Then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

Now, some of you have read this story for years and thought, I get gold, that's a nice gift. Myrrh sounds like a perfume, but what the heck is frankincense? Maybe you heard about the kindergarten Christmas play where three kids are playing the three wise men and the first kid brings his gift to the Christ child, puts it down and says, Lord, I bring you gold. Second kid comes in, sets his gift down and says, I bring you myrrh. Third kid comes up looking kind of confused and says, Frank sent this, puts it down. And what is frankincense? Frankincense was a rare and expensive incense that was used in ritual sacrifices. The point is these were extravagant gifts, but maybe more importantly, there's a profound symbolism at work in them too. Gold, you see, was the symbol of royalty. Myrrh was an expensive ointment used for burial. Frankincense was an incense used in the offering of sacrifices. Did you catch that? Their three gifts encapsulated who he was. This child was a king gold who would offer his life in death, myrrh, as a ritual sacrifice, frankincense. They may not have understood. all the symbolism at work and what they were doing, but God was using them to paint a picture. And that leads us to the response of the wise men.

4X joy, verse 10, look at it. They rejoiced exceedingly at this point with great joy when they finally saw the Christ child. By the way, Matthew uses four Greek words to communicate joy there when he could have used just one. Literally, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. They had joy upon joy, upon joy, upon joy. The NIV Bible lamely translates those four Greek words as just they were overjoyed, which is a gross understatement. Matthew's statement is intended to be over the top. He's writing like a middle schooler on purpose. They had joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, down in their hearts, down in their hearts, down in their hearts to say. Joy gone bananas, joy on crack. Do the kids still say that? Joy unhinged, I don't know. Joy uncapped, whatever. But ask yourself, what caused this over the top extravagant joy? I mean, Jesus hadn't performed any miracles for them. He hadn't given them any gifts or any guarantees of future prosperity. No, all their joy, all of it came simply from seeing him. You see, somehow these pagan wise men understood before almost anybody else did, who this child actually was. This was the promised Jewish Messiah who would bring peace on earth

and reconcile humanity to God. And they recognized this was the great gift that all the prophets that Daniel had given them, all of them had been talking about, a Messiah who would reconcile people to God through the offering of his life. You may feel like the Bible is a big, dense book, but I always tell people I can summarize the whole Bible in four simple phrases. By the way, this is what I say to people I sit beside on airplanes or to Uber drivers in the 15 minutes I have with them. I tell them, hey, you can summarize the whole Bible in four phrases. I'm like, it'll take me 90 seconds. You can stop me anytime you want if you don't wanna hear it. Four phrases, bad news, worse news, good news, better news. Bad news, you and I are sinners, all of us. We all through our sin, which sin simply means that we do what we wanna do rather than what God wants us to do. All of us have separated ourselves from God and put ourselves under the condemnation of eternal death. You say, well, that is bad news. What could possibly be worse news? Worse news, there's absolutely nothing you and I can do to fix that problem. No amount of religion, no resolve to be good, no New Year's resolutions, none of that can make up the gap between us and God.

We are under the condemnation of death and there's nothing that we can do about it. The good news, the good news is that what we could not do, God himself did for us by coming to earth as a baby to save us. That baby would grow up to live the life we were supposed to live, a life of perfect obedience, a life without sin, but then he would die the death that I've been condemned to die in my place. And that leads me to the best news. The best news is you don't have to do anything to earn that salvation, you can only receive it as a gift. For God so loved the world, the apostle John says, that whosoever believes in him will never perish but have everlasting life. Christmas is the story of God giving the greatest of all gifts to us, something better than prosperity, something better than earthly peace, the greatest gift of all eternal life, the gift of knowing that you know God, of knowing that you're at peace with him, that he is faithfully working all things in your life for good, the gift of knowing he will never leave you or forsake you, that nothing in all creation could ever separate you from his love, that surely goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life and you will dwell in his house forever. Somehow those wise men understood that and that is what gave them joy, joy, joy, joy, 4X joy.

God himself is his greatest gift. And let me use this moment to get on a little soapbox or maybe more like an anti-soapbox, a soapbox against everybody else's soapboxes. About Christmas, people often lament the commercialization of Christmas, all the wish lists and the stocking stuffers and the piles and piles of gifts that we lavish upon each other. And they're like, well, you know, Jesus didn't come so we could give each other gifts. Christmas should be about church and family and religion. And I agree, obviously, but Jesus didn't come so we could be more selfish and more materialistic, of course. And yet in a very profound sense, lavish gift giving is entirely appropriate at Christmas because you see, in so doing we are commemorating the greatest and most lavish gift ever given, God's gift of his son to us. And when my kids open up their gifts and they experience joy, joy, 2X joy, I want them to get in that just a little taste, a little reminder of the greatest gift ever given, the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. given to them by their heavenly father, by their real dad and the offering of his son. True story, on Thursday night after our first service, I was a teenager who was not interested in a single word I had said the entire time

until this point. When I said this thing about big gift giving, he perks right up nudging his mom and starts nodding his head in my preaching. He's like, you tell it pastor, you tell it. Christmas is about the greatest conceivable gift ever given to humanity. You see, you see our most pressing religious question, listen, our most pressing religious question is how can I know that I'm right with God? How can I know I'm at peace with him? How can I know that if I died right now, I would go to heaven? But I gotta ask you that right now. If you died right now, tonight, do you know for sure you'd go to heaven? There are two primary ways people attempt to answer that question. Some spell their answer as D-O. What you do that makes you right with God that determines whether or not you go to heaven. If you go to church enough, or synagogue enough, or mosque enough, if you keep the commandments enough, if you're a good enough person, if you do enough, then you will be accepted by God. But on Christmas, God showed us that the true answer to that question is spelled not D-O, it's spelled D-O-N-E. It's not what we do that makes us right with God, it's what God has done that he gives to us as a gift.

You see, the truth is, we can never be good enough, or religious enough, or consistent enough to earn favor with God. The apostle Paul declares in Ephesians 2, it is by grace you have been saved through faith. It is the gift of God, by grace through faith. Grace literally means gift. It's a free gift for you because Jesus paid for it fully through his death and his resurrection. These wise men recognized that Jesus was the true gift, which is what led to joy upon joy upon joy, and an extravagant outpouring of worship and gifts. You can know that joy this weekend also. Sadly, however, the response of the wise man was not the only response to the birth of Jesus. Matthew records two other responses there in Matthew 2. And he does this because, hear me, in these three responses to Jesus, you will see the entire race, entire human race, you will see the way the entire human race has responded to Jesus. You are in one of these three categories. Response number one was joy, joy, joy, joy, joy. Second response we have is the response of Herod. And that response is hostility. Look back at verse seven with me. When the wise men showed up, then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem saying,

go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him. Now class, did Herod really wanna worship Jesus? Kids, did Herod really wanna worship Jesus? No, he didn't. No, okay, this is the audience participation part of the program. Did Herod really wanna worship Jesus? No, Herod was pretending worship while intending murder. Herod had been installed by Rome as a puppet king of Israel, and historians tell us that Herod was paranoid about losing his power, like psychotically paranoid. For example, when Herod was first inaugurated as king, he invited all of his family's rivals or anybody they owed money to, to a big inauguration bash as a show of peace, a new regime. But when he got them all there, he surprised ambushed them and had them all killed. Few years later into his reign, Herod had his wife killed because he thought she was conspiring against him. Then shortly after that, he had all three of his sons killed because he thought they were conspiring against him too. Y'all, even the Roman emperor Augustus was reported to have said, you would be better off as one of Herod's pigs than you would as one of his sons. In other words, you'd have a higher chance of surviving. Oh, listen, when a Roman Caesar is like, dude, you're cruel, then you have reached a whole new level.

So puppet king Herod was paranoid about losing power, and now you got wise men from afar showing up saying that the true king of Israel had just been born? Oh yeah, of course, Herod wants his kid killed. Herod represents the person for whom Jesus is a threat to their self-rule. Make no mistake about it, Jesus comes as the king, the rightful ruler of your heart. And so for those of you who want to maintain control or maintain sovereignty over your life, which is a cherished American ideal. the ability to do things your way, to have nobody in charge of you, but you to be the master of your fate and the captain of your soul to determine what's right and wrong for you. To those of you like that, Jesus presents a threat. When I was growing up, my Sunday school teacher used to say, in every heart, there's a throne and a cross. If Jesus is on the throne, well, you gotta be on the cross. Yes, but if you're on the throne, then Jesus has gotta be on the cross. By the way, you Sunday school volunteers, do your job. Most of my best theology, I learned from my Sunday school teachers. Who's in which position in your life? Who's in control? Who do your time, treasure, and talents really belong to?

Who's Lord over them? Who is in charge of your beliefs? Who's in charge of what you determines is right or wrong in the areas of sex or marriage or divorce or money or any other area of morality? Do you let him decide that or do you think that you get to decide that for yourself? Who's in charge of where you go and what you do? You need to surrender to Jesus as king. That is, you've crucified or died to any will or any agenda you have outside of his or you have rejected Jesus's claim and kept yourself on the throne, which means your only option is, like Herod, to resist him, ultimately to crucify him. You say, well, J.D., wait a minute, wait a minute. That's a little harsh. I'm not sure I'm fully in either category. Maybe I haven't fully surrendered myself to him yet, but I'm not crucifying him. I mean, I believe in him. I come to church. I'm a pretty good moral person. Yeah, but you see, that's not really an option. When Jesus comes into your life, he comes as king. He comes as ruler. You either surrender to him or you reject him. It's like we say around here, he's either Lord of all or he's not Lord at all. That's the definition of the word Lord.

In every heart, there is a throne and a cross. If Jesus is on the throne, you gotta be on the cross, but if you're gonna be on the throne, then he's gotta be on the cross. So which position is Jesus in? Have you fully surrendered to him? So you got the response of the wise men, 4X joy and worship. You got the response of Herod, hostility. One more. You got the response of the crowd, indifference. Y'all, maybe the most perplexing thing to me in this story is why nobody else in Jerusalem went with the wise men to check out what was going on in Bethlehem. I mean, after all, verse three says that all of Jerusalem had noticed the wise men coming. They were all troubled by it. Everybody was talking about it. Everybody was talking about what was going on and everybody was aware the biblical scholars had been consulted to figure out the significance of this star. And yet nobody went with these wise men to check out what was going on. One scholar I was reading explains it this way. Said, well, see, there were lots of Messiah claims in those days. Yeah, every five or six years, somebody new would claim to be the Messiah. So people were not overtly moved anymore,

especially since the wise men were only talking about locating a small child, not a mighty warrior with an army. So yeah, I get that. There were lots of Messiah claims in those days, but this one seems different, doesn't it? But the scriptures and the foreign wise men, my question is why not at least go and have a look? Here's what I think. It just felt like too much of an inconvenience. Everybody was busy. This just didn't seem like that pressing of a question. I mean, yeah, they would have been curious about the Messiah but not enough to really inconvenience their lives to figure this out. I got a call at the end of November, a few weeks ago from the producer of the CBS Sunday morning program. Call was from Manhattan. She said, hey, we would love for you to come on our show and do a two and a half minute Christmas message that we will air on our national CBS Sunday morning program the Sunday morning before Christmas, so today. Two minutes, she said, to explain from your perspective the true meaning of Christmas. She said, will you write out what you wanna say and give it to us and then we'll get you to film it in the studio and then we'll air it on that Sunday. So I wrote up two or three options and I sent them to her and they seemed really happy with them. They picked one of them said, hey, this is great. They scheduled my time in the studio.

Then like a week later, the producer called back and she said, listen, your script was great. This is not about you. She said, we just ran out of space in our programming. So we had to cut the Christmas explanation segment out of our program. It's not that we gave it to somebody else, we just cut it all together. But she said, we would love for you to do a two and a half minute message at Easter. So I said, you can't afford two minutes for Jesus at Christmas. Talk about no room in the end, right? Guess, am I right? No, I didn't say that. I did not say that to her. And I agreed to do the Easter one. But the point is, the point is, even at Christmastime, Jesus doesn't really fit. Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher, said that distraction sends far more people to hell than disbelief ever did. In other words, for most people, it's not that they overtly reject Jesus. It's that they just never take the time to seriously consider the question. Friend, hear me, Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. He claimed to be the one that all the prophecies were about. He claimed to be God's solution

to the brokenness of the human race. He claimed to be the way, the truth, and the life that nobody could come to the Father except through Him. He claimed to be the only name unto heaven given among men by which we can be saved. The most important question you will ever consider in your life is, was He telling the truth? Is He really God? Did He really provide the only way of forgiveness from sin? Are you really lost without Him? Who do you say that He is? Herod responded with hostility. The crowd responded with indifference. For a long time in my life, I was pretty laid back about whether I actually knew God. I was like, yeah, I go to church. I'm a pretty good person. I'm sure God probably grades on the curve, and as long as He grades on the curve, I'm definitely on this side of the bell curve. It wasn't until I became desperate to know, am I right with God? What's gonna happen to me when I die? Is Jesus really the way, the truth, and the life? Have I been born again? You see, I knew I was a sinner. I knew that I needed something. It was only when I got desperate that I really found Him, or maybe a better way to say that is when He found me. And that's as God said it would be.

Deuteronomy says, you will seek me, God says, and you will find me only when you seek me with all of your heart and with all of your soul. Listen, friend, the only thing you need to come to Jesus is a sense of your need, a need that most people in that day and this day are totally blind to. You might think it's your sin or your poor choices or your background that keeps you from God. No, the only thing that keeps you from Jesus this morning is your inability to see how desperately you need Him. I've given you three possible responses. Joy upon joy upon joy because you recognize in this baby is the answer to your greatest need. Option two, hostility because this king threatens control of your life. Option number three, indifference. Which of those three best characterizes you this morning? Listen, I believe some of you right now, you wanna be in this category. You recognize that Jesus is who you were looking for. And right now, you are ready to cross the line of faith and you are ready to give your heart to Jesus this weekend. And I'm gonna give you a chance in a moment to do just that. But first, let me acknowledge that for some of you, maybe you're not fully there yet. Maybe this weekend marks simply the first step of a journey that you're just beginning. You're seeing some star for the first time. So let me extend a special invitation to you.

Hear me, this may be the most important invitation you have ever received. I wanna ask you, starting in January, to give us one year of your life. And here's what I mean by that. One year where you commit to yourself to come to church on a regular, or at least a semi-regular basis. And to get a little bit involved. I don't mean to stand up here with me on stage, I don't mean to join the choir, but just get involved in some way. We do this right here every weekend. We worship, and then somebody stands up here to open the word, and there's lots of volunteers that help us pull it off. And so I want you to commit to coming. And when you get here, you're gonna start hearing about things like men's conferences, and prayer nights, and student events, and I want you to participate in them. Again, I'm asking you to try it out for a year. You say, yeah, but a year's a long time. Sure, but think about all you stand to gain if this is true. I mean, if God is real, and this book is true, think about how much of a difference this could make in your life. You might discover the missing piece of your life. And if I'm wrong, all you've given up is a year of your life making an honest attempt, and your family will respect you for having gone through the process. But see, here's what I'm confident of.

If you give us one year, your life will never be the same. Your marriage will never be the same. Your kids' lives will never be the same. If you give us one year of your life, I'm confident your grandkids' lives will never be the same. How do I know that? Look around. You're surrounded by hundreds of people, some of you thousands of people, many of whom have taken me up on that challenge, and they've experienced the change that I'm talking about. And they will tell you it's worth it. In fact, if you agree with that, Summit Church, that Jesus is worth giving a year of your life to pursue, would you just clap your hands right now and testify to that? Would you do that? This is our testimony. This is our testimony to you. If you've been here at this church for a while, you've heard me talk about how my dad, Lynn Greer, sitting right here in the front row, 1973, took a step out into an aisle during an invitation one evening in church. I wasn't born yet. He said yes to Jesus. And everything changed in my life because of that. My sister and I weren't even born yet. But my dad stepped out into an aisle to say yes to Jesus, and then his life changed, and then my mom's life changed, and then mine and my sister Christy's lives changed, and now our kids' lives are changing. Lord willing, one day when they're grown up, and they have kids of their own, their kids' lives will change,

whole generations of a family change, because one man said yes to Jesus. This morning, my heart feels overwhelmed with gratitude, saying I'm so glad. In 1973, my dad said yes and stepped out and started to follow Jesus. Here's what I want to ask you. Will you be that man? Will you be that woman for your family, one year of your life, starting in January? But like I said, some of you are ready to give your life to Jesus now. Right now. You're ready to give your life to Jesus right now. And I want to give you a chance to do that. Remember, you can summarize the whole Bible in four phrases. Bad news, you're a sinner, under God's condemnation by your own choice. Worst news, there's nothing you can do to change that. No resolution, no religion can change that. Good news is what you could not do, God did for you, by coming to earth to live the life you're supposed to live and die the death you were condemned to die in your place and offers it to you as a gift. The best news, all you have to do to receive it is receive it as a gift. Have you received salvation as that gift? Because if not, you can do it right now. When every head bowed at all of our campuses, every head bowed with me, and I want you to pray this prayer with me, if you are ready to receive Jesus as your Savior.

If you've never received Jesus or you're not sure that you have right now, you want to say, just sounds like this, Jesus, I surrender myself to you. You're the King. Tell him, you're the King, not me. I surrender. Now say, I believe that you died in my place to pay for my sin and I received that as a gift. I believe you died in my place and I received that as a gift. I accept you as Savior. Father, I know that there are some people, there are many people that just passed from death to life. Thank you, Jesus, that your spirit is here. We know it. He is redeeming, enlightening, awakening, and saving. Okay, when everybody, all campuses, I want you to look up here now. Look up here at me if you would. We're gonna do a candlelight service on Wednesday, Christmas Eve. But here's what I want to do right now, okay? This is not the candlelight service. I want you to take out your phones. I've sort of had a little tradition of doing this at Christmas, but I think it's important. Don't turn on your light, not yet. Now, if you prayed, listen, at all campuses,

if you prayed that prayer with me just now, for the first time you were receiving Christ, or for the first time you really understood it, I want you to turn the flashlight on your phone. Just turn it on. I know it's a little bit of a bold move, I just want you to turn that light on, okay? All over the place. Just turn it on, just hold it on. We see it, so leave it on, okay? Now, if you, keep it on, or a family member has been baptized at the Summit Church this year, or you or a family member has accepted Christ this year, I want you to turn on your light, okay? Let's do that everywhere, okay? Hey, Summit, can we give God praise here? Keep the lights on, keep it on. Summit, can we give God praise? That's awesome. Keep it on, keep it on. Now, everybody else, everybody else, everybody else turn on your light, okay? I want you all to stand to your feet. Everybody turn on your light, I want you to stand to your feet. I want you to leave this light on for this next song, because it's Christmas, we celebrate that God so loved the world, the light of the world loved the world, that he gave us his only son, Jesus.

And this weekend, we're celebrating the miracle that Jesus has come to a lot of households for the very first time. Hey, a lot of you are gonna celebrate Christmas for the first time this year as followers above Jesus, and you're gonna experience joy upon joy upon joy, so lift your voices and let's sing together, joy to the world.