Home > Sermons > December 25th
Isn't today wonderful? Christmas Day, this most wonderful day when we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus. It is so good to be here with all of you today. Christmas Day will not happen again on a Sunday until 2011. It's the love we feel that makes today so special; we can sense it, it feels so good. It is the love of Jesus that exudes out of us at Christmas. Isn't it amazing how it effects us? We have been filled with the spirit of giving, the spirit of joy, happiness and the spirit of unity. We've been friendlier, more patient people. We didn't get nearly so upset with the bad drivers, or slow sales clerks, or unruly kids. We could see the goodness in people. The world was transformed right before our very eyes. Even the nastiest person seemed to have at least one good quality. All in all, we simply love one another more.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if this could continue all the year through? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could love one another in February and July and September the way that we do now? If we could only love one another on Monday morning, or Thursday afternoon, the way that we do at Christmas; wouldn't that be wonderful? The world would change.
If you desire that, you desire the same thing that Jesus desires, and the same thing the Apostle John believed was possible when he penned his letter 2000 years ago. What is God saying to us?I. Love shows the world Jesus has been born. The way the world knows that Jesus has been born is through you and me. The world easily forgets the manger before New Years. But when He is born in you and me and we love each other the world notices. God is calling us to live out, on a daily basis, 365 days a year, what we feel right now. He is calling us to live out the love of God in a world that so desperately needs it, the way that Jesus did.
The Bible says that God first loved us. He is the source and motivation of all love. John wrote in verse 9, "This is how God showed his love to us: He sent his one and only Son into the world so that we could have life through him." That means God's love was made known in a visible way, through Christ. Love had hands and feet. It reached out, it touched, it hugged, it felt, it healed. It wasn't cold and aloof, it was warm, up-front, personal and sacrificial. It hung on a Cross.
So what John is talking about in his letter is our loving others. But he is not talking about our conditional love. It is not love based on friendship or gratitude or sex appeal; "If you love me, I'll love you. If you do this, I'll do that. If you're good, I'll be good to you." No, it is based on God's love - God's unconditional, sacrificial, give-all, kind of love already delivered in Christ. 'We love because God first loved us... God gave us this command: Those who love God must also love their brothers and sisters.' ( I John 1:9)II. Love forgives. The Bible says, "It is God's love for us in sending his Son to be the way to take away our sins" (I John 4:10). No matter what we have done wrong, Jesus can make it right. His love covers it all. We can be new people, free, forgiven, in a new relationship with God. If you have never felt loved before, you can feel loved today. God will forgive you, and fill you with His love.
Remember how Jesus did it? There was that Samaritan woman; her people were enemies of God, and yet Jesus came along and spoke with her and she ended up receiving the well water of eternal life inside of her. There was Peter, his long time friend who denied him three times. After the resurrection, Jesus came and forgave him just as many times. There was Zacchaeus, the thief and tax collector that everybody hated. Jesus came and stayed in his house and called him his friend. There were those who crucified Him and spit upon Him on that Cross. But Jesus forgave them all. The book of Romans says, 'God showed his love for us in this way - that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us' (Romans 5:8). So we need to forgive each other. We need to love each other. This is our witness to the world that Jesus has been born in us.
A couple of years ago, I was fishing up on Lake Erie. I arrived before light and stopped at a little diner to have some breakfast. There I picked up the Sandusky Register, the local newspaper. There's usually not much in the Sandusky Register but a certain headline caught my eye: 'Love allows pastor to forgive.' The dateline was Bridgeport, Connecticut. It said: "The Reverend Walter Everett spoke from the heart when he presided over the wedding of his son's killer. 'Love means knowing that you can say, I'm sorry, and that the other person will forgive you.' Everett spoke this to Michael Carlucci and his bride at the altar. 'I'm sorry and I forgive you' are the key words in any relationship, Everett said.
The men's relationship depended upon those words. For Carlucci had fatally shot Everett's twenty-four-year-old son in a drunken scuffle at the apartment where they both lived. Rev. Everett didn't speak of his son at the wedding attended by about eighty-five people at the Golden Hill United Methodist Church, he only spoke of love. 'Love is patient and kind, it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.' After his son was killed, Everett was angry when he heard Carlucci would be sentenced to only five years in prison. But that changed when he heard Carlucci apologize at his sentencing hearing. On the one year anniversary of his son's death, Everett wrote Carlucci in prison to offer him forgiveness. 'That decision for me didn't come easily' Everett said before the wedding. 'But I began to see how the anger was destroying me.' Everett said he wrote the letter as a way to move on in his life and afterwards found some inner peace. When Carlucci read the letter, he broke down in tears. He wrote back and the friendship slowly developed and that friendship helped him carry on with his life. 'It began with an act of forgiveness... today is a definite milestone.'
When we decide to love, when we decide to forgive, it is a milestone in our lives and a milestone in our world.
We can see it in other ways. I have seen it in the prison guard who bows to prayer for his prisoners. I have seen it in the tears of the mother who welcomes home her wayward daughter. I see it in a wife who forgives her husband, though she is not certain he will not hurt her or be disloyal again. I see it in you as you have reached out to children and families and adopted them this Christmas, and bought for them and cared for them as if they were your own.
It's the love that we see, not just any love, but Christ's love. That's why He came you know; to love us, forgive us, to give His life for us so that we could love and forgive one another. I like the little saying that is printed in a lot of the Christmas cards that we get:"If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent an educator.
If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist.
If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us a economist.
But since our greatest need was forgiveness, God sent us a Savior."
III. We feel love now - what about tomorrow? Tomorrow and next week, the clean up will begin. The lights will come down, the trees will be thrown out. Size 36 will be exchanged for size 40, eggnog will be on sale for half price. December's generosity will become January's payments and the magic will begin to fade. The world will go back to normal and people will start acting the way they did in November - but for the moment, the magic is still in the air. Maybe that's why we are here today, and that's why we might choose to witness that love tomorrow, or Wednesday, or September 15th, or April 15th, or whenever. For our world needs love. Love reaches, love teaches, love forgives, love sacrifices, love serves. Will we choose to love tomorrow?
Norman Neaves, pastor at Church of the Servant in Oklahoma, tells an old story of a porter at Grand Central Station in New York. In many respects he was like all of the other porters: Afro-American, poor, carried bags for a living. But there was something special that set him apart from the others. For people all over the world knew him by name and they would ask for him when they came into Grand Central. Norman Neaves says, 'May I tell you what happened to this remarkable man? One day, in Calvary Church in New York City, this porter turned his life over to Jesus. When he returned to his work, he was a different man. Along with carrying bags, he began to carry the burdens of people. He cared for them, prayed for them. He did all that with such grace, dignity and Christian love he became a servant to all. Because of this marvelous Christian, travelers from all over the world were touched not just touched by his life, but by the life and love of Jesus Christ.' His story has been told in books and magazines, and traveled around the world. Why? He never forgot to love everyday.
2000 years ago Almighty God sent his only begotten Son into the world. Born in a manger in Bethlehem that baby became a man and walked into Jerusalem and willingly took the Cross and carried it up to Calvary where He suffered and died for you and me. It was God's way of saying that Christmas wasn't over and it never had to end. 'Dear friends, if God loved us that much we also should love each other' (I John 4:11).
I invite you to receive His love and forgiveness today. He loves you so much that He died to forgive you and give you new life. So receive His love. Then, go - go out into this world and share His love. Love each other Monday through Friday, January through December, out there in that cold world. That will keep this feeling alive always. His love flowing through you will change the world.Merry Christmas. I love you. Amen.
7Dear friends, we should love each other, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has become God's child and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love to us: He sent his one and only Son into the world so that we could have life through him. 10This is what real love is: It is not our love for God; it is God's love for us in sending his Son to be the way to take away our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us that much we also should love each other. 12No one has ever seen God, but if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is made perfect in us.