- Hey Saddleback, it's
good to be with you today. It's awesome to see you. Thank you.
(congregation cheers) Thank you, very nice. So I really wanna tell you something today that's kind of a true confession. It's not really that big
a deal but it kind of is, and you know what it is? I don't really like the
way we do Christmas. We're right in the middle
of Christmas season, everybody is like, it's
full on Christmas time and I don't really like the
way that I do Christmas. Maybe I won't tell you
how you do Christmas but I don't really like the
way I do Christmas sometimes and man, I used to love
the Christmas season. It was my favorite time
of year, it really was and so I've been trying to think about what is it that's made
me just a little less, you know, little more
Grinchy than Santa-ish and I think, I think
there's a couple of reasons and one of them is because it's just, there's such pressure to produce these, I don't know Instagram worthy moments and I stink at taking pictures and I can't ever do anything
right on my Instagram so I don't and then I see everybody else's and they look so good
and they're so perfect and mine is so not and then there's just this, the emphasis on consumerism. I don't know if I'm just more
hyper-alert to it this year than other years, I don't know. But it just feels like
every time I turn on the TV, every time I turn on the radio, I pick up a magazine,
it's just buy buy buy. You know get, get, get and
it's kind of driving me crazy for things that I would never, ever want but the ads create this hunger in you for you know, for the Chia Pet with the antlers or
something that you never knew you wanted but suddenly
you've got to have it and Sharper Image Catalog
comes out with these things. You go what is that? But it's so cool. I gotta have it and I'm just, I don't know, I'm annoyed by that but I think the thing that has, is really building with me is just that it's just so time-consuming. I mean you know the calendar says that we have 12 months in every year, but I'm telling you, I only get 11 because it takes a full
month to do the planning, the shopping, the buying, the decorating, the baking, the going to parties. Anybody identify with that? Anybody, anybody, yeah you know what? It's mostly women who
are raising their hands. I'm just saying, I mean
I'm not at all saying that there's an inequity
in holiday preparations. I am not saying that but I did notice there were a lot of women
raising their hands on that and all of that just
kind of makes me grumpy but beyond that, I on a serious note, genuinely, when you've
lost someone you love Christmas, those seasons,
those holidays can be brutal because they just kind of
turn up the volume on grief and when we lost Matthew six years, this is our sixth
Christmas and I tell you, I just miss him so much. Decorating the tree isn't the same. So many holiday events that we do. I think back to when we
were a family of five, when I had three kids here with me and there's, just, there's
so many opportunities to feel that ache of missing him. And if you're in that place you know what I'm talking
about and feeling grief during the holidays can do more than just make you grumpy. I mean it can just rob
you of any of the pleasure and the fun and the
excitement that happens in those holiday times. So yes it is true, I don't really like the way
that I observe Christmas but I love Advent. I didn't grow up in a
faith tradition that talked about Advent, so it was
sort of a new thing to me and when I was introduced to it in the last decade or so and I began to understand the richness
and the depth and the breadth of emphasizing this spiritual background and the meaning of Christmas, it has completely changed
the way that I focus and you know what, I
am totally about Advent and one of the things that
is so special about it is it hasn't been co-oped
the way that Christmas has. It still retains a purity of its form and its nature and that
ability and that encouragement to really focus on the spiritual meaning of the holidays is incredible to me and so for me, I'm discovering
the best way for me to really focus on that
is around Advent things. Like an Advent calendar, an Advent wreath, an Advent devotional but I also, I collect Nativity sets and as my house is kind of
full with different types of Nativity sets they help me focus on the spiritual realities
that are inherent in this system. So I wanna show you some
of the Nativity sets there are, that I have in my house. And this one is just
a real traditional one that I've had for a very, very long time. It's probably one of my favorites. This one is from Peru. When we travel I try to buy a Nativity set from a country that I'm in. So this one is from Peru,
this one's from Rwanda and it's made of Banana leaves
and I love the simplicity and the rustic-ness of this one. I didn't put the shepherds in this picture because the shepherds have oblong heads that look like, I don't know,
they just look like aliens and so, I didn't put the shepherds. This one is from Russia and the thing that is so fun to me about this one is that little angel
cooperated for the picture but 99% of the time she
is facing backwards. I don't know why. She's a rebellious angel, I don't know. This set is also from Rwanda, just carved, hand carved out of wood
that is found there and I love the heaviness of it. This one is from Mexico
and of the Huichol Indians in Mexico, smoke peyote. Never say that right, smoke peyote. Can't say it, peyote. Somebody help me, somebody has done it. You know what I'm talking about. Okay, smoke peyote and then create these beaded ornaments
and different artworks and so those are truly
psychedelic for a reason but I love that one. This one is a set that Rick and I got, the first year we got
married, it was a wedding gift and so we've had that set 43 years and the little angel
there in the bottom left, she fell apart one day, she cracked and broke
and she was put together with Elmer's glue. Kind of represents the
way most of us are right? We've got a lot of cracks in us and then this is one that
we have in our front yard, put up every year and
I started having to put a bank of poinsettias
and hay in front of it to keep small children and
animals out of the Nativity set and then they get a little whimsical. This one is from Australia and I just love that Jesus like a little
platypus or something. I mean, I don't know it's just so cute. And then this one is
probably the most unusual one that I have, very modern art where the Nativity as color blocks and Jesus is the little white square in the middle there. So there's just the Nativity sets, they're all so different. They're all you know,
made of wood and clay and ceramics and beads and straw and all different sorts of materials but the thing that's the
same about every one of them is the characters of the
Nativity are the same. There's always Mary and Joseph, there's always angels and
shepherds and wise men and but it always, I have
these all over my house. And every year I start thinking about what is so fascinating
about the Christmas story that it has inspired
artists for 1000 years now to try to portray it in
these different mediums and there are three questions that I think that we wanna
answer about what is so special about Christmas, what is
so special about Advent? The first question is, why
did Jesus come to Earth? I mean Jesus is in the
center of every Nativity set but why, why did Jesus come to Earth? And the Bible gives a very clear and concise straightforward
answer in Luke 19:10. It says there, for the
son of man came to seek and to save the lost. Nothing ambiguous about
that, straightforward. Jesus came to Earth to
seek and to save the lost. Well then the second question that follows right on that heel is because it's the logical
followup question is, well who are the lost? If that's what Jesus came to do, he came to seek and to save
the lost, who are the lost? Well I think we can
take some knowledge here from the Nativity set,
and use these characters as stand-Ins for who it
was that Jesus came for and the first group that I
would say that Jesus came for were outcasts, the
outcasts and the shepherds are the stand-in for
the people in our world who are at the lower end. They are people who may perform
a lot of menial functions, they aren't given a lot of attention. They aren't necessarily
at the top of the list of who you would invite
for Christmas dinner. Shepherds were necessary
in that agrarian society because people's wealth was
measured in their flocks of sheep and goats and
cows and so the people who took care of the livestock were important in that sense but they weren't important in terms of them being human beings. They were treated as menial,
as slaves in some ways, as people who weren't very valuable. Now if you've been around
sheep, I'm a city girl. So I haven't been around
a lot of sheep in my life but the few times I have,
one of the things I notice is that sheep smell. Oh my goodness they
stink and so a shepherd you figure who's spending
most of his time with sheep is gonna smell and we don't
like people who smell. Let's be honest, we don't. And so the outcasts, the
shepherds were the people who were necessary,
they performed functions that were needed in that time
but they weren't very popular. They didn't get a lot of
dignity or worth or humanity. Nobody really wanted to be around them. And yet, Jesus came to
seek and save the outcasts. In Luke chapter four,
it's recorded where Jesus he's been, he's just returning
from spending 40 days in the wilderness where
he was tempted by Satan and he comes back to the synagogue on, after those 40 days and
someone hands him the scroll of Isaiah to read to the congregation and so Jesus opens it to what, for us would be Isaiah
61 and he says you guys, this is me. What I'm about to read to
you, this is about the Messiah and that's me. So when Jesus read this
passage out of Isaiah to those that were there listening, he was clearly again identifying who he was and what he came to do. So it's recorded there in Luke 4 verses 18 and 19 and Jesus read this. "The Spirit of the Lord is on
me because he has anointed me "to preach Good News to the poor. "He has sent me to proclaim
freedom for the prisoners "and recovery of sight of the blind, "to set the oppressed free, "to proclaim the year
of the Lord's favor." So Jesus identifies four groups of people that he has specifically come to be with. He came for the poor, he
came for the prisoners, he came for the blind and he came for those who are oppressed. Well I think the shepherds fit in that and I think a lot of us do as well. Because in our world, if
Jesus were standing here today and he was telling us, hey
this is who I have come for, I have come for the poor, I
have come for the prisoner, I have come for the sick,
I have come for those who are oppressed, I think
he might mention orphans and vulnerable children. Because in our world today,
probably the poorest people on the planet, bar none are orphans and vulnerable children. Think of it, if you have
lost your mom and your dad you've probably also lost your home. You lose your identity,
you lose your future, your lose your ability to do
much of anything in this world without some help. Truly, the poorest people
in our world are orphans and children who have been left vulnerable and Jesus came for them. They have no power,
they have no influence. I think of people living
with mental illness. Those with serious mental illness, those who we find under bridges. In tents along Santa Ana River bank. Those who are on the streets. Those who are in their cars. Some of the people who are
there are some of the poorest on our planet and Jesus has come for them. And then I think the blind,
when he refers to the blind, I think we could think
that's a whole category of people who have illness or
who have chronic disabilities that aren't going to change. And unless you've ever
been in that situation, I don't think we most of us
have much of appreciation for that but if you have a chronic illness that really doesn't get better and it limits where you can go and you end up staying in
your home most of the time either because of pain or
because you are too weak, you are too ill to get out, what happens is in our world we tend to forget about
those with chronic illness and they become in
essence invisible people. Everybody else goes about their business. People in your neighborhood. We go to work, we go to school, we go to parties, we go
shopping, we go to ball games, we do our normal daily
life, all the while, almost completely oblivious
to those millions, millions of people around us who are living with chronic illness and have then become invisible. And then prisoners, I think of
them as being outcast as well people that Jesus came
to seek and to save. Proportionally there
are more men and women and children in prison
today around the world than have ever been incarcerated in the history of the
world and many of them truly are there because
of their own actions. Because of decisions that they've made and some have done
unspeakably evil things. At the same time, there are millions who are incarcerated not due to their own actions,
not to their own fault. It's more due to human error or corruption in a legal system in a certain place or racism and Jesus came for them. What happens is one of the worst things that we do as human beings
is we somehow decide that a group of people are untouchable, that they are subhuman,
that they aren't worthy of our attention, that they aren't worthy of respect, they aren't worthy of dignity. We don't really have to
pay them much attention. Maybe they form a function in our society but we don't really
think of them as people. We don't really think of
them as people who have needs and worth as we think about ourselves and so they become outcast. They become invisible and we
treat them often like trash. Disposable, get rid of them. They don't really matter. But I just want you to know that Jesus, so clearly said I came for the poor. I came for those who are ill. I came for those who are oppressed. I came for those who are prisoners, they were part of the group
Jesus came to seek and to save. And at the other end of the
valuable member of society club if you will, are the wise men. Because the wise men in the story represent the elites. They represent the people in our society, in any society who are at the top. The people who are the
most well-respected. Now the wise men, they were respected. They were astronomers,
they were well-educated, they obviously had money because they traveled for
two years to come find the baby that had been
born according to the star and according to their charts. So the wise men represented the people at the top of the food chain. The ones who have it all. In today's world they'd be you know, the head cheerleader,
the star quarterback, the brilliant person who's valedictorian in college or high school. They're the people, the entrepreneurs, the superstars, the ones who have it all. That's who the wise men represent. They were the elite and
if that, if those words represent you, that's kind of who you are, then it's really easy to think
that you don't need Jesus because you know, you look at the people's that we just talked about, the outcasts and it's really fairly easy to say well of course Jesus
would come for the weak. I mean of course he would
come for those who were sick. Of course he would come for
those who were in prison. Of course he would come for
those who have been oppressed. I guess that's what Jesus would do. Because they need him,
but I don't need a Savior, I've got it made, I've accomplished
what I want to in life. I've done well. And I don't really need a
savior, thanks very much. The Bible says in Revelation
3:17 a different word, gives a word of caution. It says there to some other people who thought that way about themselves. You say I am rich, I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing. But you do not realize
that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. According to Scripture
the wise men and you too, if you fit into that
group of what any group would call the elites are part of the lost that Jesus came to seek and to save. And then there's the average people. Where most of us fall the average people and Mary and Joseph are kind of the stand-ins for the average people in this world. I mean Joseph was a
carpenter, he was a good man. By all accounts he was a good man. But he was never gonna be on
the cover of Woodworking Today, he was never gonna win
some incredible awards for some beautiful piece of
furniture that he had carved, he's just a good guy
doing the best he could, put one foot in front of the other to take care of his
family, he was a good man but he was just an average normal guy. And Mary, oh my Mary was just a girl. She was a girl in a society
that didn't really value women that much and as such she wasn't educated, she wasn't special because
she was highly educated. She didn't come from a family
that had a lot of wealth. She was just a girl who
had said yes to God, average, ordinary person. But there was something special about her, otherwise God wouldn't have chosen her to be the mother of our Savior but it wasn't visible, it wasn't obvious to the visible eye. There were qualities about
Mary that you couldn't tell just by looking at her and
this is where most of us fit. Most of us are just
average, ordinary people. We're not particularly super-gifted. We don't have a super-amount of wealth, we don't have super talent,
we might not have super beauty or appearance, we're just people. We're just average people. Most of us are not losers but
we're not the winners either. We're kind of right there in the middle. The thing is, that God sent
Jesus to seek and to save the average guy, the average girl. So where do you think you fit? You know, just in that
really brief conversation about outcast or the elite,
or the average kind of more normal people, where do you fit? You know, some of you
might say if we could be just very, very honest with each other, some of you would say,
I'm in that outcast group. I have never felt like I fit. I have never felt like I belong anywhere even though I try so hard. Man I try so hard to make
connections with people, I try so hard to fit in with this group or with that group and I don't. And I can't crack the code
and I don't know why I can't because I try really, really hard. And I feel like I'm at the bottom. There's so many people
that I try to be like and I try to be like the cool person and I just can't. And God's word to you today is, God has taken notice and he has come to seek and to save you
if you find yourself in that place of never really belonging. If you are somebody who
is in that elite group and honestly you really don't identify with the outcasts and you don't identify with the average 'cause really for you life has been pretty kind to you so far. It's gone pretty well. You have reached your goals,
you have made it to the top, you have the affluence and the influence and the relationships and the fame or the accolades or the awards,
you've reached your goals. Or maybe you're in the
stage of life as I am where you more looking back than looking forward and you would say, yeah I can check that box. I can check that box, I did that. I did that, I did that, I got that, I went there,
I've been a part of that. And you feel pretty satisfied with your life where it's been. Maybe you're somebody that came
from a very rough background and you have become an elite and so you especially
have a very difficult time believing there would be anything that anybody needs, you've
learned not to trust because you knew, you feel like, if I'm gonna get there,
it has to be up to me and that's the way you've lived your life and you have got it all. But I want you to know, that
there is no amount of wealth, there is no amount of influence, there is no amount of worldly recognition, there is no amount of your name in lights, there is no amount of money in the bank that can soothe the sorrow and anguish that you feel sometimes in your heart and Jesus has come to seek
and to save you as an elite. Maybe you're just like the
most of us in this room. I've always identified
with Mary and Joseph, I've always identified
as just being an average ordinary person who's
trying to do her best. I don't have this stellar intelligence. I don't have these amazing gifts that are off the chart,
I've always seen myself as an average, ordinary person. Maybe that's where most of us are, you're just an average Joe,
you're just an average Mary. And I identify with you. Jesus has come for us. But here's something that's interesting. Whether you are an outcast
to use that language, whether you are an elite,
whether you are an average, ordinary person, you all, we all need a savior and all of us in those places, you could be at the outcast level and say but I'm a good person. Man I try, even though I don't have a lot of the world's goods, even though I don't have a lot
of the world's recognition, man I try to live my life
with honesty and integrity. You could be in the
middle and you could say, I'll never have all of
what the elites have but man I do my best to
be a person of my word. I'm a person, I mean I'm
good to small children and animals and I'm honest
and I'm really trying hard or you could be at the elite
level and you could say, yes I am at the top but I don't flaunt it. I really do my best to
give back to other people, to give back to my fellow man. To not hoard all of this
stuff that I've gotten just for myself and you at the outcast, or the average or the elite level could be a really, really,
really good person. Here's the problem, God is perfect. God is perfect and any
deviation from perfection makes us less than. And that less than separates us from God. God says in Romans 3:23 for everyone, every outcast, every average
person, every elite person, everyone has sinned. We all fall short of
God's glorious standard. It's like God is perfect and even if just, maybe you have lived such a good life but there's one moment in time in which you did one teeny, tiny, itsy bitsy little thing that was wrong, that little itsy bitsy
tiny thing moved you off of perfection and you
are no longer perfect. And God is, how does God who is perfect have a relationship with people who are so far from perfect? Who have all sinned and fallen short of
God's amazing standard. It's like my goodness, your goodness, is similar to a, like if I were to wash my car, let's just say I'm out
in a really muddy day and my car is covered with
mud and I clean off my car and there's this dirty now cloth and I hold that up to God and say, what do you think about this God? He's gonna say that is like trash. You've gotta throw that away. But the thing is, that's
what our righteousness is. We come to God and we go
look at how good I am God. Look at how good I am. Look at all the good things I have done. Look at all the kind ways
that I showed people, look at the money I've given away, look at the hours I've spent volunteering, God look at how good my life is. It's like that dirty rag in comparison to God's perfection and holiness. All of us need a Savior. All of us need a Messiah,
all of us need a Lord. And because God knows that's what we need, that's who he sent. That's what he gave to us. He gave us a Savior, a Messiah, a Lord. To take care of the fact that my goodness which is like that
filthy, dirty, muddy rag next to God's beauty and perfection, Jesus bridges that gap and
so he sent us a Savior. In Luke 2 is the famous
part of the Christmas story, it's the classic passage of
Scripture that talks about when Jesus was born and what
was going on at that time and that Scripture talks about that there were some shepherds doing their shepherd thing
out on a hillside one night and suddenly there was an angel. One angel showed up and
some commentators believe like that he was standing
right next to the shepherds and I'm just trying to visualize
myself out in the dark, inky blackness of a
night out in the country and suddenly an angel
is sitting next to me. I am gonna be scared spitless, I would not know what to do. And evidently they were too
because in Luke 2, 10 to 14 it says this. That the angel's first
words to the shepherds who were out there, "Don't be afraid." They said, he said, "I bring you good news "that will bring great joy to all people. "The Savior, yes, the Messiah, the Lord "has been born today in Bethlehem, "the city of David and
you will recognize him "by this sign, you will find a baby "wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, "lying in a manger." Suddenly the single angel was joined by a vast host of others,
the armies of heaven praising God and saying, "Glory to God in highest heaven, "and peace on Earth to
those whom God is pleased." Last week Ed Stetzer talked to us about, introduced us to Advent. If you didn't get a
chance to listen to that, I really encourage you
to do so because I think it will set you up for
understanding more about Advent if you like me, were not
raised in a faith tradition that observed Advent
but Ed talked last week about how there are two
Advents and one kingdom if you remember. He talked how when Jesus came to Earth as a baby, as we celebrate here at Christmas and in these Nativity sets that that was the first
Advent, Advent means coming. And that was the first coming
of Jesus into our world. That he came as the Messiah,
and he came as our Savior. He came as the King of Kings. But this world Ed said does not recognize Jesus' right to reign
as King and so we live in a time period in which most of us are in rebellion against
that rightful reign of Jesus as the King of Kings. So as we wait for Jesus to
come back a second time, when he will become the rightful King and bring all that he
has promised to Earth, we live in a time period now between his first coming
and his second coming and in that in between
time we are waiting. And last week Ed talked
about how we wait with hope and today I wanna just
encourage you to understand how much we wait with peace. Because of Jesus first coming, as he came to seek and to save the lost, he came to bridge that gap. The fact that there was no wiggle room between the deviation of perfection and imperfection, that God wasn't content
to leave us separated. That he sent Jesus to
bring peace with God, to bring us the peace
of God and eventually to bring peace on Earth. So how do we receive that? How do we receive that peace of God or the peace of God or how do we know we can actually really
look forward to a day in which there will be peace on Earth? It comes through salvation by being saved. So the third question,
who did Jesus come for? I mean what did he come for? He came to seek and to save the lost. Who did he come to seek and save? He came to seek and save the elites, the average people and the outcasts. Well what does it mean then to be saved if that's what he came
to do, what does it mean? Three things about being saved. First is, being saved
means that I can have the peace, I can have
peace with God for my past. Being saved means that I can have peace with God for my past. We've already looked at
that verse in Romans 3:23 that says everybody has sinned, everybody's failed,
everybody's missed the mark and everybody has fallen
short of God's perfection and God's standard. So how do we get back? How do we reconcile that? How do we make that better? Well let me tell you, it's
nothing that you can do. There's nothing you or I can do to be reconciled with God. The imperfect trying to
connect with the perfect is a lost cause but Jesus came
to seek and to save the lost and while we were still
lost he died for us. Romans 5:8 says but God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us. I love that, in the Nativity sets, Jesus is always portrayed as a baby but he didn't stay a baby. He grew up and when he was 33 years old, he was nailed to a Roman cross, crucified for my sins and for yours. He was beaten, he was tortured. He was given a death on a cross that is almost beyond our
ability to comprehend, it is so brutal, it is so violent. In Isaiah 53:5 talking
about Jesus the Messiah it says but he was wounded
and crushed for our sins. He was beaten so that we might have peace. He was whipped and we were healed. So Jesus took the penalty for me, he was, he was beaten, he was whipped and by his stripes, by his
beatings I am healed spiritually. So after Jesus died on
the cross he was buried, he was in a tomb for three days, he rose again, defeating death and by so doing, he brought
spiritual healing to all of us and restored the peace that was missing between us and God. Romans 5:1 says by faith we have been made acceptable to God. And now because of our Lord Jesus Christ, we live at peace with God. Amazing, the plan of
salvation is for Jesus, the perfect to die for me, the imperfect so that I could be restored to God so that reconciliation could happen and there could be peace
between me and him. Second aspect of being
saved is that I have the peace of God for today. I have peace with God for my past, for the fact that I was away from him, that I was a sinner, that I
had no relationship with him. My past is taken care of and now today, I have the peace of God. And if there was ever a word
that our world needs to hear, it is this word peace. It is a very fractured,
frightened, anxious world that we live in today. I cannot think of another time in my life, I'm 64 years old and I
can't think of another time where I have just felt such tension, such pressure as people are frightened. There's changes and there's tumult and there's feels like
everything is shaking and everything is changing and there's conflict and
chaos and uncertainty. I don't know if any of
you are on social media but I'm on Twitter and Facebook a lot and I frequently see people say, I'm taking a Facebook break for awhile or I'm taking a Twitter break for awhile, I'm taking a social media break for awhile and generally the reason they give is because it's all just too much. It's just too much. Because 24 hours a day
you can get bombarded with what's happening, not
just in your neighborhood but around the world and
the level of violence, the level of conflict, the level of chaos, the level of pain and suffering and sorrow and tragedy after tragedy after tragedy. It just starts to roll on top of you and that's all the stuff that's out there. That's not even talking about
the stuff you're dealing with on the inside or in your own family and people sometimes
just go it's too much. It's just too much. And so if there was ever a
need for a word spoken over us, a word peace that was laid on
top of our struggle it's now. In John 14:27, Jesus was
talking to his disciples, telling them that he was going
to be going to the cross, that he was going to go back to God he was gonna, he was
gonna ascend back to God and he tells them, I'm gonna leave you. But he says but I'm
leaving you with a gift. He says "I am leaving you with a gift, "I am leaving you peace of mind and heart. "And the peace that I give you is a gift "the world cannot give. "So don't be troubled or afraid." Jesus said I am going back to the Father but I'm leaving you the gift of peace. And it's not like the
way that the world wants to give you peace, that has nothing to do with taking another drink. It has nothing to do with
buying one more thing on the internet, it has nothing to do with hanging out with people that you know you shouldn't
be hanging out with. It has nothing to do
with anything external that you might do to temporarily
try to soothe yourself. It's a peace that unshakeable. In 1861 the American poet
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, his young adolescent son, under 18 joined the Union Army to
fight in the Civil War. Longfellow was very much against it because his son was so young but his son was determined
to go and he let him and a few months later
his young daughter Fanny was in their home and a candle
caught her dress on fire and before Longfellow
could get it put out, he tried very valiantly,
and was severely burned on his arms and his face and his chest. His little girl was terribly burned and she died the next day. In Christmas of that year, he wrote in his journal these words. How inexpressibly sad are all holidays. A year later in 1862
he wrote on Christmas, I can make no record of these days. Better leave them wrapped in silence. Perhaps some day God will give me peace. In 1863 his son was
severely wounded in the war and Longfellow wrote
nothing in his journal on Christmas but on Christmas Day in 1864, he wrote the words
of the poem Christmas Bells and it is a poem about the Civil War and the conflict then but it is also about faith and hope and peace in the middle of tragedy. Isaiah 26:3, God says that
he will keep in perfect peace all those who trust in him, whose thoughts turn often to the Lord. My 94-year-old mother is, has late-stage Alzheimer's
disease and sadly, unfortunately, most of her days are filled with confusion and delusion and paranoia and crippling anxiety. My poor mama thinks that
she is going to be murdered. She feels like the caregivers
who are great people, she feels like they are only pretending to be nice to her and that
when she's not looking one of them is going to kill her. She believes that if she
doesn't get help for herself that she will be lost and
sometimes she calls me. She called me yesterday
before I was speaking here and as I was getting ready
to walk out on stage, I get the call from her that says, I am going to be killed and
you must come get me right now. And I said, mama I can't. I'll be there in an hour
but I can't come right now, I'm getting ready to speak at Saddleback and her words to me, well I
hope you can live with yourself because I'll be dead when you get here. (congregation laugh) Most of the time she recognizes me but sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes she'll say to me,
you are just cleverly made up to look like Kaye but you are not Kaye and she thinks I'm part of the conspiracy of people that are going to kill her and so my sweet mama who has all her life been as sweet as pie is often angry, she shouts, she's belligerent and mean. But it's because she is so frightened. She doesn't know where she is and she feels like she is completely alone and at her wits end. And sometimes I'm really
tempted to be irritable with her because I'm telling you it
just goes on all the time. And there are times when I'm
feeling tired and stressed and part of me wants to
say mama just stop it okay? Just stop it. You are fine, you are safe. I promise you it's me, I'm not
gonna do anything to hurt you these caregivers are not gonna hurt you, that's what I'm tempted to do
and every once in awhile I do. I'll be really honest,
I'm not gonna paint myself better than I am. Sometimes I do get really annoyed with her but I have also found that the times when I get down on my knees in front of her wheelchair
and I put my arms around her and I bring my face close, and I hug her and I shush her the
way I shushed my babies when they were frightened. Shh mama, shh shh shh,
it's okay mama I'm here. Mama it's okay, shh. Shh, and I get her out of the wheelchair and I put her on the couch next to me and I wrap us both in a blanket and I put my head on
her chest and sometimes she'll put her head on my shoulder and as I continue to stroke her arm and just gently touch her and shush her. Shh mama, shh, shh shh shh. There are some times in
which she can relax her body and she goes (exhales sharply) and for a few moments she's comforted. My friends, some of you
today are so frightened and you are so deeply anxious
about life in general, about your life in particular. You don't know what's good,
you feel like your life is coming apart at the seams and I believe that you are
here today or listening because Jesus wants to give you his peace and he wants to shush you as gently as I shush my mama and if
you can hear that with me Jesus saying to you shh, I got you. I got you. I won't leave you, I promise. I'm with you. That's the peace of God. When Jesus said, I give you my peace it's not like the world
this kind of peace. This is the kind of
peace that will hold you when the bottom falls out, when the wheels come off the bus, when you feel like you cannot
survive another moment. God's peace will hold you. There's one more thing about being saved, and it's the future aspect. We have God's peace, peace
with God for our past and we have the peace of
God to hold us steady today in our tumultuous and unsteady world and the future aspect is some day there will be peace on
Earth because being saved means one day there
will be peace on Earth. Have you noticed that there is
no peace on Earth right now? This is not a world in which
peace reigns, it is not. And we would love it if there
could just be this giant bow around the package of life
that gave us all peace and we could all get along
and it would all be amazing and everything would just be
perfect and we pray for that but listen, it isn't going to be that way until Jesus comes back because we are in that period of rebellion against God as our rightful king
but the day is coming. It's coming when Jesus returns and he will bring peace on
Earth and oh what an amazing day that will be. In Isaiah 2 verse four,
prophesy about the Messiah, the Lord will settle
international disputes, all the nations will
convert their weapons of war into implements of peace and then at last all wars will stop and all
military training will end because it won't be necessary. Isaiah 9, five to seven goes on to say in that glorious day of peace there will no longer be the issuing of battle gear, no more the
bloodstained uniforms of war. All such will be burned. For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder and these are these royal titles. Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace. And his ever-expanding,
peaceful government will never end. He will rule with perfect fairness from the throne of his father David. He will bring true justice
and peace to all the nations of the world. This is going to happen because
the Lord of heaven's armies had dedicated himself to do it. No wonder the angels said glory to God when they saw the
beautiful plan of salvation that God was bringing, so what
did Jesus come to Earth for? He came to seek and to save the lost. Who did he come for? Who did he come to seek and save? Well he came for the
posers and the pretenders. He came for the powerful
and the powerless. He came for the brainiacs and
those of average intelligence. He came for the beautiful
and the not-so beautiful. He came for the popular
and for the bullied. He came for the sick and for
those who have great health. He came for the geeks and
the freaks and the dorks. He came for those who
are fantastic at sports and he came for those who
are athletically challenged. He came for the winners
and he came for the losers. He came for the strong
and he came for the weak. He came for those of you who never seem to fail and
he came for those of you who never seem to do anything but fail. He came for the drunks, and the druggies, the dealers and the addicts,
he came for the abused and he came for the abusers. He came for the murderers,
the rapists, the thieves. He came for every race, every language, every ethnic group, every gender. He came for those of you that don't fit into any
neat category at all because the truth is, he came for you. He came to seek and to save you. He came to save you, to
give you peace with God. He came to save you, to
give you the peace of God and he came to save you so that one day you too will experience the peace on Earth that he brings when he
returns as the King of Kings. Would you pray with me? For some of you this
is the first time maybe that you've ever heard really
why Jesus came to Earth. That he came on a seek and save mission. He didn't come on a seek
and destroy mission. He came on a seek and save mission and maybe for the very first
time, you have identified that you are one of the
ones that he came to seek and to save and if so,
maybe you would pray this prayer with me, just close your eyes. You can say this in your mind, you don't have to say it out loud but say something like this. Jesus, thank you for coming
to seek and to save me. Thank you for coming
to seek and to save me when I wasn't even
interested, I was your enemy. I was so far away. Thank you for choosing me. Thank you for seeing me as I really am in ways that nobody else ever has, that you have accepted me and that I could be a part of your family. Father I pray for those who
made that prayer just now, I pray for those who have
struggled their whole lives to find a place to belong
and what an amazing, amazing revelation to hear
that the God of the universe has come to seek and to
save us as individuals. That you know us, that there's
just absolutely nothing we can hide from you. There's no pretense. We can fool everybody
else, we can fool 'em but we cannot fool you and yet you chose to come for us even when you knew everything there was to know about us. Thank you for reconciling us with God, for bringing peace between us. Thank you that you promised
to give me your peace, that no matter what
else changes and shifts and moves around me. No matter how violent the world gets, how much an upheaval it becomes, no matter what goes on
in my personal life, no matter what happens in my family and my health and my finances. I can be at peace because
you will never, ever, ever, ever leave me and you
sing a song of peace over us. And God we wait with anticipation, really great anticipation
for our poor, broken world. For the day that you come back Jesus and you finally put that
huge bow around life, around our planet, you
wrap it up with peace and there will be peace on Earth. Until then we wait, we wait with hope and we wait with peace. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. - Thanks for checking out
this message on YouTube. My name is Jay and I'm
Saddleback's Online Pastor. I want to invite you
to take your next step by checking our our online community, or help get you connected to
a local Saddleback campus. Three things we have
to offer you right now, first learn more about
belonging to our church family by taking Class 101. Second, don't live live
alone and get into community with others by joining
an online small group, or a local home group in your area. Third, join our Facebook
group to be more engaged with our online community
throughout the week. Take your next step and
learn where a local campus is near you by visiting saddleback.com/online or email online@saddleback.com. Hope to hear from you soon.
