The Christmas Delivery that Changed My Heart

TRANSCRIPT

Today as we continue on, we are gonna start to have a look today, specifically in this hope that we can get when we start to know Jesus personally. But as we saw in there, they were giving some gifts out today, um, in the angel tree, and I am a gift giver when it comes to Christmas time. I laugh. Giving the gifts.

I don't even care if I get a gift in return, but the giving of the gift and seeing the face, in fact, I'm the sort of person that I plan ahead, so I'll be listening for months for a little thing that someone says, and I'm like putting that back there. That's gonna be a present for that person down the track.

I like to really intentionally plan, and I love the fact that when I get to do that, I wrap it up and I pop the name on the top and then I can say, this is for you. I thought about you when I gave you this gift, and some of you might be the same as that. And there's also this amazing feeling when you are looking at a gift and it has your name on the top right?

It's super cool. You start going into science mode, like what's the size, how heavy is that? What is the shape? What is the, some people, are there any shakers out there? Any gift shakers? Yeah, you have a bit of a shake shake trying to figure out what it is, and then there might be something you're like, I'm not even gonna look at it.

I don't wanna spoil a surprise. I don't even wanna see. So there's different types of people, but there is something special when we get to see our name on the top of something, something. For us, it's the label of possibility. Who knows what's in that thing, but it's for me, regardless. And hopefully it's not a banana.

Have you seen those, uh, little memes online? People wrapped up like bananas and stuff for their kids, and they put it under the tree and the kids have a meltdown of like four kids. The label of possibility, who knows? But today I wanna talk a little bit about labels, and I've brought some oversized labels here today, and I have not organized anyone to help me in this, but I'm gonna.

Pick on a couple people here today, um, that I would like to do a little job for me, a little bit of an interactive thing, see with these huge labels that I have here today. Ha ha. These can be placed over somebody's head. And on the outside I have placed a little statement and I'm gonna ask for a couple of people from in the room today just to come up and give this to the person that matches the description on the other side for them.

That's pretty easy, isn't it? And if you are watching online, feel free to write on paper, stick it on someone in the family. I don't know, but this is what's happening here. So, um. To you from me. Now the first one on who am I'm gonna choose first. Kirsten. Yeah. Kirsten, can we give Kirsten a clap? Now, Kirsten, I want you to have a look around the room and see, can you put this onto somebody that you would say makes you smile?

Yeah. Shane's like, it better be me. Otherwise you're sleeping on my couch till night. But anyway, you can choose anyone you want. No, anyone you want, some of that makes you smile, Tom. Woo. Now there'd be a story behind that. Tom, you make me smile too. So just sort of letting me know that. Alright, um, Tom, you're next then.

Someone that when you see you just love seeing that person, I love getting to see you. Hmm Hmm. It's a lot of hard thinking going on here. Oh, here we go. Here. Have we got party? Party The As Nathan? Yes. And you gotta wear that all day. I didn't tell you you have to wear it. Shops lunch. Whatever. Whatever you're doing today, that is part of that.

All right, my last one. All right. Sophie, you hate coming up front probably, but she's literally been on stage the whole time. Um, this one you cared about me. Someone that you feel has really showed that they cared about you. Hmm. It's so good that this is a hard, it's good. It's good that this is a hard thing in this group of people.

Right? I think that's great. If you're like, oh, easy. That's the only person that's scared for me at our church. My sweet Billy. Oh, Alicia. Beautiful

labels, little labels. Now I'm, I'm probably thinking that right now. Some of you feeling pretty great about yourself. I just got a label. Yeah. Ah. Because receiving that label, it feels nice. It feels like I felt seen and I felt acknowledged just now for something that maybe someone else sees in you. But every day people are being labeled.

Every single day people are being labeled. You are being assigned into a category most of the time, and sometimes it's from the people that know you the best and you have super great relationship with. But did you realize and have you recognized that? Sadly, most of the time it is from people that know nothing about you and they are categorizing you and they are labeling you into some sort of group.

And with that sort of mentality, there comes judgment and there comes social rankings that just appeared outta nowhere. There's assumptions and all of those things can be unspoken, but sometimes they're also spoken, especially in the online world, and every single day there are labels being handed out.

And in this circumstance, it was a nice label. It was something you were really happy to get. But a lot of the time in our life there are labels that we are not happy. To have had assigned to us. And whilst there is this huge excitement over seeing a label on a gift, something positive, and there's like a hope and an anticipation of something that's gonna happen when you are getting a negative label that's placed on you, that actually brings to you despair and disappointment.

So there's two different types. And as we look later on into Angel Tree, we're gonna touch on these a little bit again. But the opinions that can be handed out from other people, like we don't even necessarily know who they are and they have opinions on us, but sometimes we actually have ones that are our own labels, unloved, and we assign them to ourself.

I'm useless.

I am worthless.

Thanks Jackie.

And these things that we can assign onto ourselves. There's multiple things that can happen with this. First of all, we can start changing our behavior because of the labels that have been placed on us. We start thinking a certain way about ourself, and we can have negative self thoughts. We can lead into anxiety and depression because what we feel like people perceive us to be, or this is what I feel like everyone sees me as, so that's what I must be.

And we can isolate ourselves from others and it can actually limit the potential that we actually had. That God placed on us, and we can actually have these become super heavy. In fact, the labels can be the thing that keeps us down when God's saying, Hey, I've got some great things in life for you. I, I don't know how I can get to that because I am heavy with all of this stuff in my life and we actually become prisoners to this stuff.

We don't have to be locked up in an actual physical jail to be a prisoner. Of something in our life, we can be captive and held captive to thoughts and opinions of others and ourselves, which stop us from getting to where we need to be. And it changes the direction of our life and it changes the way in which we decide to move forwards.

And perhaps for you, you have already, and even right now, you know, there are some pretty heavy labels that you can feel hanging around your neck. From either yourself that you're holding onto or from other people that you feel have placed that upon you, and it's taking you away from the truth of what God says, and this is the truth of God, that no one is beyond the reach of God's love.

And we're gonna pop that up here. No one is beyond the reach of God's love. You are not beyond the reach of God's love, regardless of what things you may be carrying onto in your life or feel have been placed upon you. And I feel that this is the true beauty of the Christmas plan. And I'm gonna say the Christmas plan.

'cause it's not just a story. This was the start of a plan that God had for humanity. And so when we look at this. It was a plan for salvation, and the word salvation means deliverance from. So taking you away from it, taking you away from harm, from ruin, from loss, and all these sorts of things that hold us back.

This is what God said. I have a plan for that for people that want to seek me. I have a plan for that for people who are open their eyes and see what I have in store for them, because humanity is not. Beyond the reach of my love, you're not. And I'm gonna show you in a very unusual way, and that is when we see this first Christmas occur, and a lot of us know the account inside and out, but he chose and selects a group of people involved in this very first start of the plan that are not necessarily the usual choices.

They're not a human couple, first of all, to be the parents of a divine son of God. Come on. That's weird. It is. And then he selects the most humble and lacking of fanfare place for the birth. It's not even Panara Hospital like, come on. No private services, probably not even an obstetrician. And then. The magnitude of what was actually happening at that time.

Can you imagine? God's like, guys, it's time. He's got all the angels together. It's happening all these years. We've been planning this. We've been telling people for hundreds and hundreds of years, it's gonna be today. And there it is. See the cow down there just next to the right. There he is. We've done it.

Guys. No one's time. Come on. Come on. This was it. We waiting all these for this. God, it's not. What you would think it was, and this birth was foretold, but people still didn't recognize it. Was that because it wasn't what they were expecting, even though they knew it was gonna come, it wasn't what they were expecting.

And as we look closer at this moment in time, I believe we start to really see God's heart for people from the very start of the plan that he had in place. And when we do that, we look at the people that he chose to see. Exactly how he sees through his eyes. And so tonight, tonight, today, we are going to have a chance to read through some scriptures.

We're gonna have a look at some in Matthew and some in Luke. And many of these you have seen and heard before, but Matthew and Luke, they hung out with Jesus. And so these recounts, when they writing it, they are like, this is what I know because the kid who was born told me it's pretty reliable. He told me it.

It wasn't some extra other person who came and told me this information. I heard it from his mouth. And so they've written this down. So let's have a little bit of a look at what they have revealed as we write, as they've written this down. So we're gonna look at Matthew one, first of all, and this is 18 through to 21.

And it says this, and I'm gonna have it up here so you can follow along. This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. Very matter of fact. This is how it happened. His mother, Mary was engaged to be married to Joseph, but before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And I'm gonna continue reading on Joseph to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not wanna disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement off quietly. Fair. That's fair. Like honestly, and as he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. Joseph, son of David, the angel said, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife for the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit and she will have a son and you are to name him Jesus, and he will save his people from their sins.

There's a lot going on. Just those few verses. So essentially, first of all, we've got Mary. Now around that time we've discovered, you know, people have done their studies. Mary was around 14 or 15 years of age. It's the age of my daughter and that's quite frightening.

So, um, Mary was a teenager and then you've got Joseph. Joseph was a local carpenter and in that time carpenters were essential, but they were still low status. They weren't up there as like, that's not the greatest job ever. I'm like a bit rude 'cause they're doing a lot of stuff for you. But straight away you've got a local tradie set to marry a pregnant teen, somebody called the Gold Coast Bulletin.

We've got a story for you.

This is a bit scandalous from the get go, but already a pregnant teen and a tradie. Hmm. That's gonna go well. Okay, let's have a look in Luke chapter two now, and he is recording a little bit after, after the baby's born, so that was the inception. Now we're heading into, after Jesus has been born, Luke two, eight to nine.

And we read this and there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks. At night, an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone, shone around them and they were terrified. I'm gonna keep reading for you, but the angel said to them, do not be afraid.

Bit of a pattern. Here I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. Here's the Messiah, the Lord, and this will be the sign for you. You'll find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. And suddenly a great company of heavenly hosts appeared with the angels praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth, peace to those on whom his favor rests.

And then what the shepherds decide to do is like, wowsers, we gotta go and check this out. This is legitimate now at that particular time. So the shepherds are the very first people apart from marrying Joseph to see baby Jesus. The very first ones. And in that particular time, the Pharisees were kind of like the head honchos in the town.

Everybody respects the Pharisees. They know what's, they got their finger on the pulse of society. And the Pharisees actually had a name for shepherds. They had like a, you know, like we've got our tradies and all that sort of stuff. And the name that they called Shepherds was sinners. That is what was happening at the time.

Isn't that interesting? God chose the ones that the Pharisees called sinners to be, the very first ones to open their eyes to Jesus. That blows my mind just slightly. When you start to dig into more of the details of the plan. It's quite phenomenal the way in which it's, we are woven together. And then a little bit later on back into Matthew chapter two, he talks about the magi, the wise men who had heard about Jesus and then decide to come.

And we read about this in Matthew chapter two, and it says about that time some wise men from Eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem and they were asking, where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we've come to worship him. Now in there as well. Um, when it says newborn king of the Jews, I always thought it was the Jewish people, but the Jews are the people of Judea.

That's what the Jews were. So they came for all people, not just the Jews. Oh, that's interesting. So they've come and they've come to worship him, but the Magi, they weren't from that country. So they were foreigners coming to see an infant child who in those times, children and kids and babies, they were good for nothing basically.

So let's put all these together. We've got a pregnant teen, a tradie, some sinners, some foreigners and, and a good for nothing baby. Sounds like the lead up to a good joke, doesn't it? What do you get when you, it's crazy. This is God's starting plan and I found this amazing picture and it's a comic and I've made it safe for church because.

And I was just, for some reason this hit me. I'm gonna put up the picture for you. And it's a picture and it says, animals, foreigners, baby straw. Nobody's animals. Unclean, poop. That's where I changed it, say, for church. So where were all the important people

that hit me? I looked at this and I'm thinking, where were all the important people? God knew who were the important people, and it was different to who everybody else thought was important at the time. The unlikely characters that he threw in together to represent all the oppressed, all the ones that were judged, all the criticized and all the marginalized were all in one room at the one time.

Oh, not the magi. That's false, but let's just go with that for now. That was a couple years later, but this is not a coincidence. This is God is not the God of. Yeah, that'll work. He has planned this out and this is what he came up with. And I'm just like, too shea. Nice work. There's no way anyone could have predicted that to be that way.

And you see where the world saw labels. God saw potential. God saw people that were actually ready to welcome his son, and it wasn't the ones you'd think actually would have. And throughout Jesus' life, he modeled this same acceptance that his father showed from the very beginning, and I'm just gonna touch on this quickly, but in Luke, the same book where we read about Jesus' birth.

He writes 30 years later now Jesus is older and he's going into the synagogue on a Sabbath, which is a day not meant to be in there. And he is going in there and he picks up a scroll. And on that scroll was written something that Isaiah had written 700 years before, and they were all knowing of this scroll.

It was scroll, it was from the book of the prophets. And so he unrolls this scroll, and Luke writes this in chapter four. Jesus says these words, now, I want you to take my voice out of this. Put Jesus' words into this. The spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me. To proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind to set the oppressed free. And then he rolled up the scroll and he gave it back to the attendant, and he sat down and the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. And then he says, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

And I look at these, these different things that he said he was coming for from. To proclaim good news to the poor. And this isn't just the poor of money, but this is the poor of spirit. And then he says, I'm going to proclaim freedom for the prisoners. And we've already talked about this. These are people that are trapped by circumstance or trapped by things that that hold us down.

And then it says, I've got recovery of sight for the blind. And yes, he'd. Gave physical recovery of sight to the blinds. But he's also saying, those people who are yet to see me, I'm gonna recover you from that. I'm gonna open your eyes to see that I am who you, who I say I am. And then he's setting the oppressed free, the ones who are mistreated.

And so at that very moment, Jesus was basically saying all those labels that people have put on you and continue to put on you, and you've put on yourself, they are removed by now and you are renamed. By me, and you are renamed worthy and purposeful and loved, and you are renamed important, and that despair and that disappointment, when you add Jesus into the equation, it turns into hope and anticipation.

But even more than that, it turns into freedom. Freedom from this stuff that I don't need to carry anymore.

Useless. Don't need it because it's not real. It's not true of what Jesus has done. Freedom. Oh. To realize that God loved me so much that he would have a plan for me to not have to walk around carrying the burdens that I'm not meant to carry. And instead he says, I see you who I made you to be, and I've called you by name.

You have a name, and you're also my child. And that's all you carry. Nothing else. You're my child. From the very beginning, every person has been my child. They're just getting lost along the way. Are you capturing this today? Are you capturing this for yourself? He came for you, and I feel this is where we can start to see Jesus revealed in our life in a fresh way as we consider.

The start of this plan that we get to celebrate and it's time to step into this freedom. And maybe you don't know Jesus yet, but I'm here to tell you, he's come to release you from this stuff. And as you get to know him more, you will start to feel a change in your life. And some of you here, you can go, yes, I've already experienced it and I'm still experiencing it today.

My life is changing because of him. And if you do know him already, then maybe it's time to let some of this stuff go and re clothe yourself and remind yourself. This is what I need to carry this and nothing else. It's Jesus and nothing else in my life because no one is beyond the reach of God's love.

And then for us, if we say that we are the people of Jesus, which we are, then that also means there's no one in this world that we are allowed to write off. No one, no one that we can write off. Because God says every person is important to me. And that's a challenge for us, isn't it? I find that challenging.

Now. Earlier today, we saw this beautiful angel tree story, and this is one of the opportunities that we get to give into for our love in action this year. And I've already seen online, people are already saying, yeah, I'm happy to go and buy. I've been watching that this week and I'm so excited for that.

Um, but Angel Tree was set up to provide an opportunity for incarcerated parents to give a gift at Christmas when they can't physically be there during that time. And society is really quick to judge people that are incarcerated and being part of this program, all I can say is that every single person has a story.

Every single person you see that is incarcerated has a story. And a lot of the time it is built on trauma and tragedy and your heart will break for those people. And I think it's great that we have a justice system for sure, but it's also important that they remember they're not lost. Once they're in there, people can still see their situation and step in.

And that's what God does through our angel tree. And imagine being a child where your parent is in prison. Think about the labels around that. Think about the fact that you don't know where your parent is. Maybe you haven't even been told 'cause you're too young and they're just gone. Maybe you have a confusion about when are they coming back.

And we had, we talked about this this week, just some of the stories in the office and I'm like, man, these poor kids, they don't know. Mom said she's going to the gym and she didn't come back. That is heartbreaking. But also social interactions. Just knowing people, knowing that maybe your parent is incarcerated and the whispers and the things around you, that's hard, especially when you are just a kid and you didn't do anything.

In that situation, but in God, regardless of the situation that's surrounding it, this is about a child being seen at Christmas time, and I wanted to just share with you one of my experiences as I'm finishing up today in this, because I had decided quite a few years ago that angel tree was something that God put on my heart to be a part of.

And I did the whole process. So I got the name of the parent, they tell you what they want and then you go and shop on their behalf and then you go and choose what you can. And then you wrap the gift and you put the kid's name on the top and then you go and you deliver it to the family and you spend time with the family.

So I've done it from the start to the, to the finish of the process. But, and we have people for all different parts of that. But this one particular family, this day I drove up to the car and I had a boot full 'cause there were five children. A boot full of, and I drove in and they were just checking me out like at the gate, who is this person?

And I didn't open my boot yet. And I went inside and I was talking to the parents inside. And in this particular situation, there were two wives. Both of their brothers, uh, both of their husbands were married, and both of the husbands were in jail. So now the whole family lives together while the husbands are missing from the situation.

And so it was all the cousins and everything together, and I was talking to them and I was sitting down hearing their story and, you know, you get an opportunity to, to get into their world for that period of time. And then they said, all right, I think we can go and get the gifts now. And they said, why don't you go and tell the kids that we've got presents for them?

And I said, yeah, yeah. Okay. So I said, Hey guys, I've got some Christmas presents for you, and they've got your names on them. And they're like, oh. And they're running out to the boot of my car. And I had, oh, tell you what, I had shopped so good. Oh, I got so much stuff for the money that I had, and like presents were huge, like scooters, everything, like crazy deals that I found.

I'm like, wow. And so I'm handing these massive gifts over and then sometimes you just leave them and you say, bye, enjoy that on Christmas. But this day the lady said, would you stay while they open them? I'm not gonna cry. So I watched these five kids open their presents and they're like, oh, oh. They were so excited their name was on it.

And then one of the kids, he turned to me and he's like, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I said, these aren't from me, these are from your dad. And he was like, oh. And the jaw dropped open, and as they left, one of the kids just gave me the biggest hug. He was just so excited that he had been given something from his dad that he was missing.

And when I drove off in my car, they were running after like, like what a difference from the start to the finish. And my heart changed. My heart changed. In that moment it did. I know for a fact I left that place a different person that day and I saw love in action and it was twofold. Children were able to be seen and shown that even in your circumstance.

Your parents still sees you, even though they can't be with you. And then also the incarcerated parent, they would've got a phone call and said, we just got your presents, dad, thank you so much. And they get to choose what they, what they want to give. And that person that's incarcerated realizes I'm not forgotten in here.

God wants to still provide for my family when I'm not there, even though society maybe rejects me right now. Jesus is still welcoming me. And those are huge things because no one is beyond the reach of God's love and this is what we get the chance to do. And so with Angel Tree, we've got a few different areas.

We've got those people that can shop, and then we are looking also for people that are wanting to go and deliver. And be a part of someone else's story. And it is challenging. I'm not gonna lie to you, but I'd still believe that the Holy Spirit does something to make that process just a beautiful experience.

And so we encourage you to sponsor a gift, even if you don't, if you can't do any of the other things, just sponsor one gift. Is, is it still $25? $25 to sponsor a gift for a child that you will never see? Because that's what Jesus was born for. That's why Jesus lived his entire life doing what he did. And that's why Jesus still lives today doing what He does through us, through us.

And that's the hope of the gospel. And I think that is the hope and the beauty of the Christmas story. And so as we're finishing today. And I'm going to be asking Nara to come up in a moment to sing a specific item just for you to reflect upon today. But for you personally, I want you to think about are you listening to this today and recognizing what has been holding you prisoner from getting closer to knowing Jesus?

And if you can recognize that, then I encourage you today to allow the label to go. Allow it to go say, God, I want you to save me from the deception of the things that I've thought about myself. I wanna step into that reality of who you say I am. I want you to reveal to me the truth of what it is you've done for me.

And maybe it's the first time for you, but maybe it's. To the thousands time for you and you need to do it again. But that is where I believe we are at today for us, because this advent season is beautiful as we remember what was done for us. But also we need to be able to hold onto this so we can go out into the world and do that for other people.

If you are still carrying around the labels of what other people have said about you, you're gonna hide away from going to tell somebody else about what God's done in your life. But if you can start to change the things in your world and realize, you know what? I am God's child and I can do things with him working through me, then I have the opportunity to create change in someone else's life and point them to someone else who can help them when they're struggling with the same things the world is putting onto them.

And so this particular song when I was, I've been preparing this message for a little while, and I was just driving one day at our beautiful Nara Don't make you. Feel weird. Um, she like, I know a lot of you know that she's a worship lead here, but she's a beautiful songwriter. And a few years ago she wrote a Christmas album, which you can listen to on Spotify.

That's not a plug, but it also is, it's amazing. It's beautiful. Like, and I remember the day we were, we were in the office and Naras like, it's ready. I've done like it's finished. Do you guys wanna listen to it? And we're like, yeah. And so we're in the little room and. Nan started playing the songs off the album.

There's this one particular song and I just was crying. I was like, that is one of the most beautiful songs and I'm gonna cry again. Stop. I know. Sorry. It, it was one of the most beautiful songs for Christmas that I've ever heard in my life. And so I was driving the other day and I listened to it again and I cried in the car on my own, but mainly because I felt God say, this is the song at the end of an end of your message.

And so obviously Arm was like, yeah, yeah, that's fine. Maybe she doesn't realize how emotional I was about it. But in this particular song, it's called Our Savior Is Here, our Savior is Here. And I you'll, you'll hear it as it comes through, but the reality of that moment. When Jesus was born and how it's changed my life now.

Like if that had never happened, what would my life be like now? Sorry Jen. I don't know. I dunno. And when you cut glass, grasp onto the magnitude of a baby being born at such a time. To create the life that I now get to step into. You can't help but be emotional about that. And the angels shouted in heaven when Jesus was born and they haven't stopped shouting, they haven't.

Right now, the angels are still celebrating and declaring, and they're saying, this is Jesus who has done this for humanity. And now we have the opportunity to share that with other people. And so as Nara sings this today, I want you to think about this for you. The magnitude of Jesus being your Savior.

Yes, the Savior for the world, but even more individually, your savior. Because it's a huge weight off your shoulders when you start to recognize who loves you and who's got your back. I'm just gonna pray and then I'm gonna allow Nara to sing. Father, we just thank you that the labels that we assign to ourselves in this life or that we get given to us are not ones that we have to carry.

And that you stepped in and you did something so huge that you went to the cross and you died so that we could have this opportunity to know your freedom. And just today, we pray for all the people that are going to be touched by the radical Christmas love from our church and all the different initiatives.

And specifically, I want to pray for those children right now, God from the Angel Tree Group that are just awaiting. And they don't even realize that in another few weeks they're gonna be getting a special gift with their name on the top from a God that sees them and loves them. And so just now as we listen to this song, we thank you God, that you sent your Savior for us.

Jesus, we just elevate you and say that we love you, God. We just love you Jesus, so much. And we just wanna remember you. Properly remember you and turn our eyes to you this Christmas. Amen.