Light of the World • Part 1┃"Most Wonderful"

hey everybody Merry Christmas and welcome to your move I'm Andy Stanley and this really is the most wonderful time of the year but not necessarily because of what's happening but because of what happened and not necessarily because of who's with you but because of who's for you and that's what we're gonna talk about today on this special Christmas edition of your move I really do love this time of the year and part of the reason I love this time of the year Christmas is because my family right now is not complicated and I say right now because I should say it's not complicated yet because eventually every family gets a little bit complicated but right now there's six of us and it's just not very complicated we all get along we all have to be together we host Christmas at our house Sandra cooks her extended family comes to be with us and sometimes when they're in town my extended family come so I really really do love this time of year and again because right now for us right now it's not complicated and I think one of the reasons that's such a big deal to me is because for the last really like 24 or 25 years my family of origin was very complicated and some of you understand this for about 25 years the four of us were never able to get into the same room do Christmas you know any two of us any three of us just about but getting all four of us together and it's nobody's fault you know the history doesn't matter the story doesn't matter it was just relationally complicated and throughout the year as you know you're not really aware of that because you know we can have lines we can have dinner the two of us can meet but at Christmas the timeframe gets compressed right because there's that Christmas Eve Christmas Day night before Christmas thing that gets so important and who's gonna be with who and who's coming over and if they're coming they can't come and we just you know it's just complicated at Christmas so for the past 27 years it's just been complicated because we host and I've sort of had to navigate and officiate and decide who can come win and who can't and it's just it's just extremely complicated and it makes me so grateful that right now in my immediate family the six of us it's just not complicated the most that the most complicated maybe Christmas elf of all for me is when this whole thing got started about I'm thinking about 24 years ago it was in my the first Christmas and my parents had split up and some of you have your own story so this is my sad story and so we're coming up on Christmas and we had a tradition where my family would go to my parents house we would do Christmas Eve and open gifts have a big dinner and then about 10:00 or 11:00 at night we jump in the car and go to Sanders family's house she lives about two and a half hours outside her family's lives in the town about two and a half hours from Atlanta so we had this tradition so as we're approaching this first Christmas when my mom had moved out she's living somewhere else she has her own Christmas plans my dad's in the house that I've kind of grown up in through college end of high school in college he's there this big house by himself and as we're approaching Christmas it dawns on me uh-oh if we do what we normally do Sandra and I and our little son Andrew he was a baby and it was the first grandchild on our side and the first grandchild and Sandra's entire family so he's like a really really important deal you know that first grandchild so as we're as we're approaching Christmas it dawns on me what are we gonna do cuz my mom already has plans you know she's got some folks my dad's gonna be in this big old house by himself and so we're gonna show up on Christmas Eve if we do our normal thing have Christmas Eve dinner with him it's just him and me and Sandra and a baby and then exchange gifts and then we jump in the car and leave him by himself in this big house and then he wakes up Christmas morning by himself and it was just killing me to think about this I mean is we got closer and closer I thought what are we gonna do you know how do you navigate how do you make everybody happy and so I did in that circumstance what I would normally do I did two things I prayed and then I called my buddy Charlie Renfro now Charlie you've heard me mention Charlie before Charlie was the guy that mentored me through the years and whenever I had you know just kind of a kind of a no-win situation or a problem or question I would go to Charlie and say Charlie what do I do so I called Charlie I said we need to get together christmas is coming and I really don't know what to do this is complicated and so we got together and Charlie did what Charlie would always do he didn't answer my question he told me a story and this is the story told me he's at Andy he's and either let me tell you something he said just a little while after its Patty and I got married a few years after we got married one night we're gonna go out celebrate our anniversary we're all dressed up and she's looking beautiful and I'm looking sharp and we're about to walk out the door and the phone rings and I answered the phone and it's my mama and my mama says Charles your daddy's acting up again I need you to get over here and help me now Charl Charlie's dad was the second world war veteran and in some in some sense he was a hero but like his the but you know as is the case sometimes with veterans when he finished that war he came back home and he had different Wars he had to fight different battles to fight and on this particular night one of those battles had kicked in and so he's on the phone standing there looking at patty at the door ready to go celebrate their anniversary he's on the phone his mom's saying hey you know Charlie I need you to come help me and then Charlie looked at me he said Andy and I and that evening I made a very I made a strategically bad decision he said I got in my car and raced off to try to solve a 40-year old problem that I wasn't about to be able to solve and in doing so created a brand new problem at home now for some of you that was worth getting up for it just to come hear that that part of the story because I just designed just solve one of your big Christmas dilemmas but I'm gonna keep going he said so he looked at me he said so Andy he said let me tell you what you do you and Sandra and you're young and you get over there and you have dinner with your daddy you open some gifts you have a nice meal when it's time to go you load them both up and you head on up the road spend Christmas Eve that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Sanders family and that was good advice and that's what I did but it felt terrible it just felt terrible it felt wrong fact I called my dad yesterday I said dad Kenneth can I share this story he said absolutely he said that's what Christmas is for most people to some degree I said absolutely it is now called Charlie is it he's okay Charlie if I tell the story he said absolutely he said it's a good story and it's true and to some extent at some point in all of our lives it's a little bit of our story because here's the thing at Christmas that makes Christmas so wonderful and sometimes so terrible and it's mostly wonderful but the thing that creates the tension at Christmas is this at Christmas Christmas exaggerates all the bad and at the same times points us to something that's absolutely incredible because Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year but it's not the most wonderful time of the year necessarily because of what is happening around us it's most wonderful time of the year but it's not the most wonderful time of the year because of what's happening because what's happening oftentimes at Christmas and what gets exaggerated in what gets focused on because the time gets compressed is that at Christmas were reminded that there are problems we can't solve right there are people we can't control right and there's expectations we can't meet and the truth is if we pause long enough to look in the mirror I'm the problem I can't solve right and I'm the person I can't seem to control and I'm the person oftentimes setting expectations that other people can't meet so at Christmas at Christmas it really is the most wonderful time of the year but it's not necessarily the most wonderful time of the year because of what is happening Christmas is absolutely the most wonderful time of the year because of what happened and at Easter we celebrate and event a one-time event but at Christmas we celebrate a season where we look forward to an event that changed everything where God sent His Son into the world to become the center of history but more important for you and more important for me he sent God he sent his son into this world to become the center of my life in the center of your life and when Jesus becomes the center of your life and when Jesus becomes the center of my life it centers our life on something stable on something hopeful on something that gives us a sense of purpose a sense of I don't need to fear even though there are many many things to fear that there's a sense in which Christmas is not the most wonderful time of the year because of who physically is with us but it's the most wonderful time of the year because at Christmas we are reminded who is for us and the darker things get and the more complicated things get and at Christmastime everything gets a little bit exaggerated but at the same time at Christmastime we're able to focus on the light of the world that has come into this world to make an extraordinarily practical difference in each of our lives now as you know or if you grew up in church you probably know this but at the beginning of the New Testament there are four Gospels there's Matthew Mark Luke and John and there's four different accounts of Jesus life Matthew Mark and Luke their accounts are very similar John's is very different John is very different and John unlike Matthew and and unlike Luke doesn't give us a birth a birth announcement and doesn't talk about the birth of Jesus in the same way John kind of gives us a different perspective and the thing that's so fascinating about the Gospel of John is this and again if you read the Bible you might pick this up and if you're new to church again you may think of the Bible is just a bunch of stories in fact the Bible is history but the thing that makes John's Gospel so unique especially this time of the year is that when John wrote his gospel he was a very old man he was a very old man in fact most people think that his gospel was the the most that was written latest of all the Gospels and when John sat down to write his gospel we don't know this for sure but it seems as if maybe he was thinking I better write this down because I don't have a lot of time left and I want to make sure that these stories are passed on for future generations because there is no doubt we know from the book of Acts that John had told these stories many many many times hundreds of times imagine if here's somebody who sat at the feet of Jesus how popular you would be with Christians anywhere John went any time John would any where Christians would say tell us what it was like we've heard the stories but you were an eyewitness so he's told these stories many many many times John is the person this is amazing especially when you find out more about him John is the person that reduced jeet that reduced God to a single word John is the person that sat back and said okay let me make this as simple and as clear as possible God is remember this love John is the one who said that and the thing that's so amazing about John's saying that is because of what John had seen and what John had experienced in his life he's a very very old man and his he's experienced loss like you cannot even begin to imagine no matter what your story is like he's lost friends he's lost family members he's lost in some ways he's almost lost his whole society in his whole culture John was alive when Nero sent general Vespasian into Galilee and he began to work his way down through Galilee rolling up all these Jewish cities and all these Jewish tenants slaughtering thousands and thousands of Jewish people and sending thousands and thousands of men women and children into the slave markets of Rome John lived through that John lived through the time when Vespasian left his son outside the city of Jerusalem the holy city of Jerusalem where John had spent many many years and had experienced some of the most amazing events of his life in the city of Jerusalem and he either saw that cities too we don't know or perhaps John was in the city of Jerusalem for those seven months when people starved to death plagues broke out and the Roman army built a ditch and a wall all the way around the city trying to get inside that city at the end of that that Jewish war in 70 AD John was either there or heard the story about the temple being burnt to the ground over a million Jews were slaughtered over a hundred thousand over two or three hundred thousand some say slaves were taken from the city of Jerusalem and again flooded the Roman slave markets by the time he had written this his friend Peter and his friend Paul had been executed by Nero and through all of that bloodshed and through all of that loss and through all of that chaos that we cannot even begin to imagine John never lost faith in fact at the end of his gospel Matthew Mark Luke John at the end of the Gospel of John here's what John writes he says this he says Jesus performed many other signs because he's filled his gospel with the signs that Jesus had performed seven specific signs he said Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book in other words I've just given you a taste of what we experienced with Jesus and then he says this but these are written but these are written that you may believe now their words the reason I'm even writing this gospel the reason I'm leaving this with you is I'm hoping that after you read this account of Jesus life you won't simply be you know impressed you won't simply be amazed but I'm writing this so that you might believe Jesus is the Messiah the Son of God and that by believing you may have life not physical life because everybody reading this already had physical life that you may have a different kind of life in his name that regard in spite of what John had seen in spite of what John had smelled in spite of what John had experienced at the end of his life with the destruction of everything important to him and the loss of every just about everyone important to him John still believed that jeez this was the source of some kind of life that went beyond physical life so when he begins his gospel he doesn't begin with the birth narrative now this is fascinating to me because when Jesus was crucified as Jesus was dying he says to John this same John John I want you to take Mary my mother as your mother and Mary I want you to view John as your son so how much time John and Mary spent together we don't know some people say they left eventually went to Ephesus and he took care of her until she died but we know that John heard over and over and over the birth narrative if anybody had had the opportunity to say Mary tell me what it was like one more time Mary what was it like when you discovered you were pregnant Mary what did you feel when the angel appeared Mary what was it like to know that you bored the son of God I mean he'd heard this story so many times he was the person that took care of Mary the mother of Jesus and yet when John begins his gospel he doesn't begin with shepherds he doesn't begin with a manger he doesn't begin with Egypt he doesn't begin with Herod and the slaughter of children little boys in Bethlehem he begins with the significance of the birth of Jesus and just like they were very very dark days when John wrote this gospel John was reminded that Jesus was born at a time when it was very very dark as well and when he sat down to start his gospel before he got into the narratives before he got into the details here's what he said and this is so extremely powerful because in a time of our lives and in a season of our lives when things can get so complicated when we're reminded not only of who is coming but who won't come when we're reminded of what we're going to get and we're reminded of what we will never get John begins his gospel with the birth of Jesus this way here's what he says he says in him Jesus in him was life not physical life in him and John's trying to put it into words you know he's got all this experience he's had all this time to think about it and he's had all this perspective and he's seen things come and go and people born and died and he's seen the destruction of everything important and he summarizes that he said when I think about Jesus the best way I know to put it is in him was life and that life was the light of all mankind that this was such a huge statement because when Jesus showed up on the planet and they've you begin to view him as the Jewish Messiah they thought that what Jesus was going to do would be regional that what Jesus would do would be for Israel that what Jesus would do would be a manifestation or a continuation of the Old Testament and John sits back as an old man he says I realize now that Jesus didn't simply come for us and Jesus didn't simply come for the Jews that what Jesus came for was all mankind that he brought an element of life and he brought a light that was for all mankind and John was there the day when Jesus had risen from the dead and he gathered everyone together and they said to Jesus okay Jesus is now the time that you're gonna restore Israel as a kingdom is now the time that you're going to restore the nation Israel are we about to do something new and run the Romans out of here and re-establish our independence is now the time and John was there when Jesus said that's none of your business the reason that you're here is because you're to go into every single nation and you were to share with every single ethnic group and every single people group what you have heard me say you were to make disciples of disciples of all nations that this life isn't a Jewish light this is a light for all man kind and then he says this this is my favorite part again he's just starting off his gospel it's like here's the introduction and the light shines in the darkness and he thought about the darkness around him darkness that again we can't really even begin to imagine he says in spite of everything that's happen everyone who's died everyone who is executed everyone who was crucified everyone that was taken away in spite of the fact that the whole Jewish nation is basically out of business at this point in fact that in spite of the fact that the temple the sacrificial system is out of business never to be restarted by the way in spite of everything I've grown to know and to love is gone in spite of that in spite of that this light shines in the darkness in spite of all that and then he says and the darkness has not and I think he paused and thought what's the right word it's like everyone understands what it means for light to shine and darkness for light to shine and darkness and to expose what was in the darkness but this light this light of Christ this light of Jesus it shines in the darkness and it's as if the darkness is hard as it has tried to put it out to snuff it out to overwhelm it to seize it to imprison it to surround it to understand it it is as hard as it seems the world in our culture has tried to blow out this light John says the darkness has not overcome it this is a man who got news that the Apostle Paul had been executed as I said that Peter had been executed perhaps he was the last apostle alive and with a grin on his face I'm sure he wrote in spite of everything this world has tried to do to eradicate the light that is life the darkness has not over whelmed it it has not put it out Caesar couldn't do it Tiberius couldn't do it Nero couldn't do it the destruction of the temple didn't do it the death of Jesus hadn't done it because again this was John who raised through the tomb the day that here Jesus had risen from the dead our actually he had heard the tomb was empty the body had been stolen this was the same John that raised to that tomb beat Peter there but didn't go in because nobody rushes into an empty tomb except Peter and then eventually John peered in that empty tomb this was the same John that had breakfast with a risen Savior on the beach this was John that was absolutely convinced that no matter what happens in this life and then no matter what we face in this life and then no matter how deep the heartache and no matter how extreme the fear and no matter how deep the depression that there is a light that shines in darkness and there is no amount of darkness and there is no type of darkness that can put it out so at Christmas when we are confronted as maybe in no other time of the year at Christmas when we're confronted with the fact that there are problems we cannot solve that you have problems you can't solve that you are a problem that someone else is trying to solve well we're confronted with the fact that there are people that we just can't control and then no matter how rational we are and no matter how many times we try to explain it to them and no matter how many times we tell them our story and no matter how many times we try to teach them to be empathetic and they're listening no matter how many conversations we have there are people we just can't control and their expectations that you're never gonna meet just like you oftentimes and I often times become or set the expectations that we expect other people to meet we are reminded in the midst of all of that darkness that Jesus is life and light who overcomes darkness there is always hope there is always a reason to believe there is a God who hears our prayers there's a reason to wake up every single day and take the next step [Music]

Channel: Your Move with Andy Stanley

Views: 12,005

Rating: 4.8446603 out of 5

Keywords: Andy Stanley, Your Move with Andy Stanley, Your Move, better decisions, fewer regrets, christmas, most wonderful, complicated christmas, light if the world, problems we cant solve, people we can't control, expectations we can't meet, merry christmas, four christmases

Id: 3NkiNeQd2o8

Length: 22min 18sec (1338 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 07 2018