Let me give an update. So if you were here in October, we did our Greater Things Campaign. That Greater Things Campaign was a $6 million campaign. 5 million of that was towards our new missions building. The combination of Man Manna Resource Center, manna Rescue, and then an additional million was for renovating our kids area Kids space. And just wanna give you an update. We, we had the, our Pledge Sunday that we had all of November where pledges continued to come in. And so I wanna give you an update with the caveat. So I’m gonna give you the update and then the Caveat will come after that. The update is when we had a goal of 6 million and we exceeded that goal. So give yourself a big round of applause. That’s an awesome, awesome thing. So what that means is that you’ll see a sign going up over there pretty soon that says, future Home, the Man and Building. And then they’ll, they’ll work towards breaking ground and, and going forward with that.

So here’s the caveat though is that a pledge is different than a gift. Those are two different things from each other. And so part of the reason you’re hesitant to give the exact amount of a pledge is because that doesn’t mean that we’ve received that. And so, I, I would just encourage you, if you haven’t participated and you’re interested in participating, don’t think, oh, well, they, they got it. They’re good to go. Because again, a pledge is not a gift. And, and an example, and this one was not included in our number but the business office came to me and they, they take pledges and they try and match ’em up in our system. ’cause They gotta send you a tax form. And they said, well, we have good news and bad news. Good news is we got a pledge. That one card was for a million dollars. And I was like, wow, that’s awesome. Bad news is the phone number that they put down was to Papa John’s. So like, that’s an example of a pledge that’s probably not ever turning into a gift. And so we didn’t count that in, in the number. Thank you to whatever High school student wrote that down.

But I would just encourage you to continue with that pledge of, of make good on it. And man, God’s gonna do some incredible, incredible things with that building and with that space. But so proud of our church, so appreciative of, of all of you, and excited to see what is next.

Christmas is my favorite season inside the church. I love Christmas, but outside the church, I love Christmas. Christmas is just fun. And I know there are some of you that don’t like Christmas because you’re Scrooge, but the rest of us enjoy the music and the lights and the, the tree and the gifts. I mean, there’s just so many things about Christmas that brings back all these memories from childhood.

Christmas is the only season that has its own music. I mean, think other seasons have tried to have their own music, but it just doesn’t work. But Christmas has specific songs that we sing every single year. We have all kinds of different people in the room, all kinds of different backgrounds. And probably if I put up the lyrics to some seventies music, some of you would be like, that’s my jam. I know every word of that.

And then some of you would be like, I’ve never heard this song before in my entire life. And so most of our music would be eclectic in terms of tastes. And yet all of us know Christmas music because the one time a year. But no matter what you listen to, we’re all singing the same songs. And, and to prove it to you, I’ll, I’ll give you an example. I’m gonna do a little quiz. It’s Christmas songs where I’ll read the first few words and then you’re gonna fill in the blank. So, so one would be have yourself a see everybody, and then you could go onto the next one, which would be Hark. The Harold was 60. This one’s kind of fun. It’s, I played my drum for him. Rumpa, I just wanted to hear you say about Rumpa pom. ’cause Here’s a really famous one, Mary.

I was gonna put some hard Christmas songs in, but there’s no such thing as a hard Christmas song. Like we all know, all the lyrics to Christmas songs Mary did, you Know, is one of those that you either love that song or you hate that song. And I get that because it’s asking these questions. Hey Mary, did you know this? And Mary, did you know that? And so going into the Christmas season, I just wanted to give you all the answers. Did Mary know? Well the answer to that in the song in order would be, did she know? No, she didn’t. And then yes, she did. Yes, yes. Then no, no, no. Then yes, then no, no, no, no, no. Then yes, yes. And then No, no. So if you wanna go through that song, there are all the answers. Very first question of the song says, Mary, did you know that your baby boy would one day walk on water?

Well, no, she didn’t know that. That’s a very highly specific thing. Angels didn’t say anything about that. But then the next question is, Mary, did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters? Well, yeah, she knew that the angel told her his name’s Jesus, that means to save. So she was very aware. So if you’re curious on that song, all the answers you need to know, they are in that slide. But something about music makes it memorable. But we sing songs and, and they, in studies have found that songs are tied to nostalgia more than anything else. You walk into a story, you hear a song, and it brings you back to your childhood. Maybe it brings you back to a good memory or a bad memory. But it brings us back and it makes us contemplate and think, why is that?

I was reading in the journal describing the process when they said that music stimulates various areas of the brain, including those responsible for emotion, memory, language, and motor functions. This widespread activation strengthens the neural pathways associated with a song. So there’s something about your brain using multiple different parts of your brain that ties songs and music more to your memory than if you were just gonna have a conversation with someone. And so during this Christmas season, as we sing Christmas songs for the next few weeks, we’re gonna look in scripture at the earliest Christmas songs that tie to the Christmas story. In the gospels, we have these songs about the Messiah and about the very first Christmas. And in studying those songs, it’ll help us really understand when, when everybody talks about the true meaning of Christmas. Well, if we just go back to scripture and look at some of these songs, it’s pretty clear what we’re talking about.

If you’ve got a Bible, turn it with me to Luke. Luke chapter one. We’re gonna start down in verse 39. What I love about the gospel of Luke is he starts out his gospel by giving kinda his thesis. He says, this is why I am writing it. He’s writing to a guy named Theophilus and he says, Theophilus, here’s what I’ve done. I’ve gone and I’ve interviewed all kinds of different witnesses. I found all kinds of different testimonies to put together this fact finding mission so that he could record what happened over the course of Jesus’ life. And so because of the way that he goes about that process, there are certain details that we get in the Book of Luke that we don’t find in any of the, any of the other gospels. The Christmas story, for example, when you think of the famous Christmas story, almost all of that comes out of Luke chapter two in Luke chapter one.

We have these, these two different things that have happened before the passage that we’re about to read. That one, the angel talks to Zacharia and Elizabeth, and they tell them that, that Elizabeth, who at that time was well past childbearing age, that she had no kids, that she was going to have a child, and her child would go on to become John the Baptist, and he would be a prophet with the spirit of Elijah. And that he would pave the way, he would make the way for Jesus the Messiah to come after him. And then you see Gabriel go to Mary and have a conversation with Mary and Mary, this peasant teenage girl who’s betrothed to be married but not married yet, finds out that she is going to be pregnant. The Holy Spirit was going to make her the mother of Jesus, the savior of the world.

And picking up right after that in verse 39. So the angel comes, has a conversation with Mary, Mary knows, and it says, in those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country. We don’t know exactly how long the gap is from the moment that the angel talks to Mary. And she goes, but it feels like it’s pretty quickly because it talks about her going with haste. So she goes with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zacharia and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary the baby, this would be John the Baptist. And Elizabeth belly leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me for behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. And now it’s this really cool picture because you have Elizabeth who’s pregnant with John the Baptist, and when Mary walks in and says a greeting at the sound of her voice that that somehow John the Baptist in the belly of Elizabeth recognizes Jesus in the belly of Mary and leaps for joy. And this causes this exclamation from Elizabeth. It’s fascinating that they put the two of them together in this story, in this exchange because Elizabeth and Mary have an interesting contrast. When you look at their stages of life, they could not be more different from each other. Like here’s a few examples that Mary is young.

Elizabeth was old, especially to be pregnant. Elizabeth was married to a priest. Zacharia the culture would’ve said that she should have been pregnant and had kids, but she didn’t. She was well past the age where she should have. And so we don’t know exactly how old she was. Most scholars would guess that she was either her late fifties or early sixties. So while that is not old, that is old to be pregnant. And so you have one person who is young and one person who is older, one person who’s not supposed to be pregnant yet she’s betrothed. She’s single one who should have been pregnant already, one who will have shame because she is having a child. The other would’ve had shame for not having a child. And so two, just very opposite states of life, people that would view their pregnancy in very different ways from one another.

One had been longing and longing and longing and waiting and waiting and waiting. And then the other had no clue. And Mary would’ve been so shocked and so surprised there was no part of her one year, five year, 10 year plan that saw her getting pregnant. Now, this was not what she thought was going to happen before she got married to Joseph. And so you have these two in this mysterious way, unlikely people in different stages of life in the exact same stage of life. And if we really look at the the Christmas song, the, the response then to Elizabeth is that Mary busts out in song. You have kind of a Disney princess moment where, where she just is overwhelmed with these feelings and then she just busts out in song. It makes you ask this question, what makes this song a good song?

‘Cause We don’t know what the tune of this song is. We don’t know the music to the song. It doesn’t describe Mary’s voice whether she had a good voice or a bad voice. Most of the time that’s, that’s how we, we would equate a song. We think of a song and say, well, do I like the tune or do I like the music to it? Or, or, well, is there really, really just excellent music? Sometimes you can appreciate music because you think the vocalist is so good or the musician is so good. Or sometimes you say, well, I don’t like this part of the song, but I really like this part of the song. And yet I think most of us would say talent has a lot to do with it. I remember when I was in fifth grade we had a school musical and I tried out for that part of the candy cane kid not trying to brag, but I got that part.

I kind of a big deal not trying to name drop. I was the candy can kid. The bad guy in the musical was Bubble Gombar. It was a real highbrow production. And, and the candy cane kid had a musical at the end. It was kind of this climax of, of the, the end of the musical. The candy cane kid had a solo that they were supposed to sing. And when we auditioned the music teacher said, well, she liked the fact that I could act. And she said, I can make any, I can teach anybody to sing. So for an entire month, I went in with Mrs. Gilmore, she was the music teacher. So after school I would go and I would sit at next to her on the piano and she would play the piano, and then we would work on the solo. And she believed that she could take anybody and teach them how to sing.

And so for one month we practiced and practiced and practiced. And at the end of that month, I convinced her that she was wrong and that she could not in fact teach anybody to sing. And when we came to the actual show, it’s like this, this grand finale where the Kenny Can Kid is supposed to have a solo. And, and it tells you all you need to know. When I tell you that that solo got turned into a choral number, and it was a whole choir that said, which made no sense in the context of it, but I was just that bad. I sounded like you’re strangling a cat. And so, so there’s some part of music that that connects to talent. And yet with Mary’s song, the only thing we get is the words. Luke doesn’t describe anything else, but in the words, in her response, we see the heart of Christmas.

And we don’t know whether this was just spontaneous in the moment or maybe this has been percolated in her mind and in her soul over this whole journey. But after Elizabeth recognizes Jesus, inside of Mary, Mary Responds. And what we get is Mary’s song. Now we call it, it’s historically Inside the Church become this famous song that we call the the Magnificat, which is just simply the Latin, the first phrase of the song in Latin which means magnify. The, the first phrase that she says is My soul magnifies the Lord. And this is her response to God in the circumstance that she is in. So let’s all pick up together in verse 46. This is what it says. And Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord. That’s where we get that name from. And my spirit rejoices in God, my savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. Some translations would say that he is mindful of his servant. For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed, for he who is mighty, has done great things for me. And holy is his name. And his mercy

Is for those who

Fear him from generation to generation. Now, there’s an interesting change that happens from verse 49 to 50 that up until verse 49, she’s talking about herself and her own relationship with God. Now she transitions and she starts talking about all people. And she says His mercy is

For those

Who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has

Scattered the proud

And the thoughts

Of their hearts. He has brought

Down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.

He has filled

The hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has helped his servant

Israel in remembrance of his mercy

As he spoke to our fathers, to

Abraham and to his offspring forever.

It starts that

That famous first

Phrase and idea as her

Starting by saying, my soul magnifies the

Lord. And this is

This position where she says, who am I?

That God, the creator

Of the universe would look to me, that he would be mindful

Of

Me.

That the story

Of Christmas really

Starts with this

Concept and understanding that God, the creator of the universe is mindful not just of Mary,

But of all of us. You, you see the Christmas story. We’ve added all

These different other elements around Christmas and all the, all of them are wonderful fun elements,

But

They can be a distraction to, to move us away from the mark of the main central theme of what Christmas is

About. That, that if we take a step back

And you really try and think of Christmas for

The

First time,

It’s

A very compelling story, but

It’s also plays out totally

Different than you would expect it to. I I think the challenge is most of us, if you grew up in the church,

You’ve heard the Luke two story a lot.

Maybe every single Christmas

Eve service that you go to, you

Hear some portion of the Christmas story over and over and over again. And instead of it being this sacred, holy, amazing thing, it can kind of become trite.

But if you take a step

Back and really look at the substance of the story,

It’s very, very

Unexpected. The at the heart of the Christmas story is things happening different than what we would think

That

Everything about the Christmas story

Refuses to fit

In the box

Of our expectations. Like here’s a few for

Example that

Who God chooses

To be the mother of

Jesus,

Mary, a

Lowly peasant

Girl is unexpected That, that nobody in the first century would’ve thought that the Messiah, where the Messiah would come from, from the lineage of King David would

Be a

Lowly peasant girl.

And probably if you were writing the

Story or if I’m writing the story, that’s not how we would’ve done it either,

Because

If you’re wanting everybody to know about

Your son that’s coming is gonna be the Messiah and the Savior. It would make more sense in the story for him to be born to royalty or to a king. But that’s not the point of the Christmas story that instead God chooses in the first century someone who would’ve had very little value. And Mary responds to that and she recognizes that the God is mindful of me. He was not mindful of Mary because of the things that she brought to the table, not because she was so great or she was so important that she had value because she was created in the image of God. And God was trying to send a message to all of us that God gives us our value because we are created in his image. Mary wasn’t bringing something to the table. The next part that’s unexpected is her response that she responds in her given circumstances with my soul, magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices and God my savior.

Now, if you’re a teenage girl who’s betrothed to be married, this isn’t the greatest circumstance. There’s a lot of anxiety and stress and frustration probably there’s some questions like, Hey, God, couldn’t you have done this a little bit different? Like her life was about to get more difficult because of the pregnancy. This didn’t make life easier for Mary, that there would’ve been a shame of the people around her and that that even if they tried to say, well, this is actually the Holy Spirit that impregnated Mary and well, this, the whole thing is the Messiah. And it’d be, yeah, sure, there’s a cultural shame that would’ve come with that. And so she could have responded in anger or frustration, and yet that’s not what she does. She responds by magnifying God and rejoicing in God her savior. And then the clearest thing that we see that is upside down is who Mary’s song shows being brought down, the proud, the mighty, the rich. And then who in Mary’s song is exalted the humble and the hungry? That is unexpected that in verses 51, 52 and then in 53 that you see the proud being brought down, it says, he scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts. He’s brought down the mighty from their thrones, the rich he has sent away empty.

It starts to unpack that. And you see that same message is throughout all of scripture that that God, the way we approach God is with humility. But it starts by us understanding that we need a savior. That the Christmas story doesn’t make sense. If we don’t need a savior, if we don’t recognize our need for God, then God doesn’t ever need to send somebody to us. But who is elevated the mercy for those who fear him? Exalts, the humblest state fills the hungry with good things, helps His servant Israel, who he helps are those people that recognize I need

God,

I can’t do it by myself.

God, please help me. It says, those are the people

That are met.

But then this other group, they, they brought low that the

Prideful, the mighty

As that phrase where it says that the rich

Are turned away empty in Christmas season. There’s this grand irony about Christmas

That, that you’ve

Got that as kind of this heart of Christmas that the rich are turned away empty. And then what do we do on Christmas morning? It’s all about gifts, gifts,

Gifts,

Gifts. And yet those gifts

Help

Us understand what that phrase means.

That riches

End up being empty in this life. We’ve seen it a thousand times that you think something’s going to make you happy just a

Little bit more, a little bit more,

A little bit more. And yet it comes up empty.

A

Great example is on Sunday morning when we all run down and there’s

All the different presents.

I remember as a kid that

We used to get

The Toys R Us magazine

Rip Toys R

Us and you’d get this magazine and you’d flip through it. It’d come in the mail and, and you didn’t ask for the magazine, they just sent it to houses. Because

If you

Were a kid and you found that magazine, what would you do?

You’d

Get a marker and you’d go from page to page and you start circling stuff. And then that magazine went

Away because

Toys arrest went away. And then Amazon got wise to it and they will send out a magazine to your house with all kinds of kids’ toys in it. And I throw that thing in the trash. I try not to let my kids see it, and somehow magically it gets

Out of

The trash and it ends up on the counter. And then I start flipping through it after my kids have all been through it, and every single page

Is circled. It’s like circle, circle circles, flip circle.

It’s like a 200 page book.

Every

Single page in the book has stuff circled on it. If you added up all the things my kids want from that book for Christmas, it’s about $162,000

This year. That’s what they’re looking for. And so that’s what we

Think, oh man, this is gonna make Christmas great. And then on Christmas morning we run down and your family probably all

Does

It a little bit different. In my family growing up, it

Was like we said, ready, set,

Go. And then 90 seconds later, there was

Paper everywhere there was a fire

And there was no presents left, there was all done. And then I married into Lauren’s family. And that first Christmas

Was like shell shock because we watched people

Open a present and then it went to the next person and the next person. And I was like, this is the most awkward thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.

<Laugh>. But but either, either

Extreme that you do at some point on Christmas morning, what

Happens

At some point it’s done. At some point it’s over. At some point the last present is unwrapped. And then an hour later

Or two hours later, or especially a week later, what happens?

There’s some amount of disappointment that comes with Christmas, especially

With kids,

Maybe with adults too,

But especially with kids. Then a week later,

Kids are still on Christmas break and they’re like, I’m bored.

Like you just

Got all kinds of Christmas

Presents a week ago.

You shouldn’t be bored for the next six months.

But what seems like it would satisfy

Ultimately comes up empty. And, and here in a counterintuitive way, the most loving thing God could do for you and for me is not allow the things of this world

To be fulfilling. That if we were

Fulfilled in riches and in stuff and in possessions, then

We

Would lie to ourself and think that we don’t need God, but

God

In his love and mercy for

Us,

Lets the things of this

World

Only fulfill

Us

So much.

That’s

When it says that the rich are turned away empty. It’s getting to the heart of that,

That

Ultimately money is not enough. And that’s why we need

A savior. Now, the

Christmas story is trying to push us to understand two critically important things. The first is this concept, this

Idea, this fact that God

Is mindful of

Us, that God, the creator

Of the universe is mindful of us. And then the second

Part of it

Is he wants us to understand that we need

A savior.

You see, Mary’s song is inviting us. It’s an invitation for us to sing along with our own lives that we need a savior and that God wants a personal relationship with us. You see, in our culture, it doesn’t tend to work that way.

What we

Typically do in our culture is the more important someone is,

The more isolated

They become. So, so if someone has a lot of influence, the more influence, the more power, the more wealth, the more separate

They are. So

I’ll, I’ll give you some practical examples.

This is a picture

Of one of Jeff

Bezos’s houses.

Now he’s got a

Lot of houses. He’s got

About a billion dollars worth

Of

Property. He owns 400 something thousand acres of land. So this is one of those houses. And now probably you’re like me that from time to time, probably once a week, I have somebody either ring my doorbell or knock on my door and they’re either selling something or it’s

A kid

Doing a booster or selling a candy bar

Or

Something like that. It doesn’t matter what non-solicitation sign you stick up, you’re gonna have somebody that comes to your door. Now, I would

Bet

He doesn’t have that problem. Now, I would bet the

Door to

Door people are not making it all

The way up

That lawn to knock on that front door. As a matter of fact, if you determine today, if you

Said,

Hey, I really want to get to know Jeff Bezos. I I want him and me to become buddies and friends, and you set out tomorrow

To go shake

His hand and sit down and have a conversation with him, I bet

You would fail. Like I

Bet when you’re making your way up, well, one, one, this is like one of a dozen houses, so there’s only like maybe a seven, 8% chance that he’s even in that house. But

If he is there, I bet

Somewhere between the front gate and that front door, a

Helicopter

Is swooping in with a SWAT team and they’re taking you out.

Why? Because powerful people have

Separation from normal people. That’s how our culture

Works. Rich people are like that.

Famous people are like

That. You, you,

You probably don’t have Taylor Swift’s cell phone number. And if you probably try and find it tomorrow,

You’re

Probably not gonna find it.

The president is like that. A powerful

Person, a world leader.

There is

Separation. You can’t just approach that person and have a conversation. And yet Christmas, Christmas, the whole heart

Of it is that God, the creator of the universe, if you ever go out to a

Place where there’s not any light pollution, you’re just in the dark, you

Look up to the skies

On the right night,

It just

Looks majestic.

It takes your, we breath away because

When you’re in the burbs in the city and you look up to the sky, you see some stars,

But you get out to a dark place

And you look up to the

Sky

And you say, wow.

And

To recognize that every single one of those

Stars is like

Our son. It makes you feel really, really, really, really small.

But the

Story of Christmas is that

God that created all of that,

He’s mindful

Of you

And mindful of me, and he wants to have

A

Relationship with us. And, and in doing so, he sends his son Jesus. And Jesus comes to, to make God personal, but he

Also

Comes to make God

Accessible.

And he does that by dying for us on the cross,

That his death paves the way for us

To stand in right standing relationship with

God.

In the next chapter in Luke chapter two, there’s this, this famous exchange where the angels are talking to the shepherds and they proclaim this. They say that Christmas is good news

Of great joy, which will be to all the people

That the message to start the word Christmas didn’t exist at

That time, but, but

Jesus coming would be good news of

Great joy for all

The people. Now maybe you’re walking into this Christmas season and it doesn’t feel that way. May maybe you

Don’t

Feel like Christmases good news of great

Joy for all people.

Maybe you’re one of those people that you’re like, man, I’ve started hearing Christmas songs in October and that that bugs me and my neighbors stuck up some really bright lights and that bugs me.

And if you don’t

Like peppermint, then that probably bugs you. I mean, probably there’s one in every family that everything about Christmas, you’re just like not a fan.

That’s

Fun stuff. But that’s not what the angels are

Talking about.

When the angel says good news of great

Joy for all people,

The angels were not talking about a Christmas tree, although those

Are great.

Angel was not talking about Christmas lights or Christmas presents or eggnog

Or all the thousand

Characters that we create around the season. The angels were talking about

Jesus.

And so wherever you find yourself coming in today, maybe it’s a hard season because of something you’re personally going through that the good news of great joy, it’s not about the season, it’s about Jesus. The God, the creator of the universe is mindful of us and he wants to know us, and he wants us to know that we need him desperately. And so this Christmas season, my, my challenge to you is to respond to Christmas the same way that Mary responds to Christmas. What does Mary say? She says, my spirit rejoices in God, my savior. Wherever you find yourself this Christmas season, look to Jesus and rejoice ’cause Jesus is our God and our savior. Let’s pray. Help me. Father, we thank you for this Christmas season. We give it to you. We pray that you would bless it. Use it in each one of our lives in a powerful way. And this is the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.