As Christmas ends, how do we carry its message into the rest of the year? This week, Pastor Elijah explores how to keep the joy, hope, and meaning of Christmas alive in our daily lives. Through shining our light, sharing the story of Jesus, and bearing fruit that reflects His love, we’re reminded to live out our faith all year long. A simple act—leaving a Christmas decoration up—can serve as a powerful reminder to stay rooted in Christ and impact the world around us.
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Sunday, December 29, 2024 - Don't Leave Baby Jesus In The Attic
Good morning Choctaw Road, how are y'all doing? Good. I'm good. I had a good Christmas. I got a question for the kids. If you are a kid, raise your hand real quick. Hold it up. I see some older hands, but I like it. I like it. I want you to do what I want you to do right now. I want you to tell me really loud what your favorite thing about Christmas or your favorite gifts you got this year. Go. Come on kids. Come on. It's not too bad. I did that the first hour and it was primarily just older people and they did not answer at all. A blaster. I like it, buddy. A puppy. That's what I want. Awesome. Well, I'm glad you guys had a great Christmas. I'm glad you got some things that you wanted. Christmas is a great time where we can have friends and family get together, exchange gifts, and also remember the reason for Christmas, and it's the birth of Jesus. But when it's over, what happens? It seems like instantly Christmas just vanishes. All right, we go on after the last present is open. We're sitting there cleaning up all the wrapping paper. We're thinking about what we're going to do next year differently, trying to get on that resolution, right? And we have that awful idea of, oh no, I've got to put all this Christmas stuff back into a box, that Christmas tree that never fits back into the Christmas tree box. How many all struggle with that? I hate finding that stupid tree. But it's something we got to do, right? It just seems instantly Christmas is over. Have you ever thought about what it would look like for Christmas to kind of stay around? I'm not talking about the songs, Rudolph and 12 Days of Christmas. I'm fine with all that. But if the joy and the excitement and love of Christmas could be around year round, it'd be great, right? I know two people in our office who would love that, Dustin Rounden and Amanda Noel, they love their Christmas. They'll have Christmas music going on in July right now, and so that's not me. But the reason Christmas is so incredible is because God coming down in the form of an infant named Jesus, right? This gift of rescue in his presence on earth was celebrated by angels, shepherds, and even kings. But we only give Christmas one month out of the year. When it's done, we box it all up, and we put it in our attic, and we don't think about it until the next year. Honestly, speaking of attics, how many of y'all truly know what you have in your attic? I don't. I'm an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of person. I have zero. I've been living that house for over 60 years now. No idea what's in my attic. I'm sure some of y'all feel the same way. But how come we treat our faith like Christmas? We get ready on Sunday and ready to be in front of everyone, to shake some hands, to worship, to hear a sermon, watch someone get baptized, and make a middle note of doing better next week. But then we get home, we get comfortable at home, and we just box up our faith, and then the rest of the week, we don't really pay attention to it, kind of like putting it into our attic. That's what we're going to be talking about today is how do we keep from putting Jesus in our attic, like our Christmas stuff? And the central truth to that is keep your faith alive daily. Keep your faith alive daily. There's three Christmas elements that I'm going to use this morning that are some elements of Christmas that I really enjoy, but I'm going to use it as an illustration for the things that we need to keep alive daily. And the first thing is lights. I love Christmas lights. I've always loved Christmas lights when I was a kid. We lived in Colorado, and there was a neighbor of ours who lived down the street that you didn't have to really drive by their house to see the lights in your Christmas time, because it was just incredible. You'd turn the corner and you'd just be blinded. All right, there was a true Griswold kind of house. Now, my family, we didn't have the means to really put up that kind of Christmas lights, but I love being able to put up the Christmas lights on our roof. It's something I still love to do today, and there's something about seeing lights in the darkness that just brings excitement and joy. Now, you don't even have to go to neighborhoods to really look at lights anymore. There's, you know, you go to Midway City, you can drive through there. You can go to Chickashay, Yukon. A lot of places that people are drawn to because they see something lit up. And I think Jesus understood this. All right, he understood that light cannot be ignored. And he says in Matthew 5, 14 through 16, "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand and gives it light, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." So in this section of Scripture, Jesus has given his disciples instructions. He's telling them that you are the light of the world. And so if they're the light, that means that this world is dark, right? And I don't think you have to go to church or be a believer to recognize that there's something wrong with the world. There's something that is not right around us. But only those who follow Jesus have the light of life in them. All right, we're not the source of that light only Jesus is, but we reflect the light of Jesus when we live our lives out daily. And so since we're the light of the world, we should not hide that light from others. Light was not created to be hidden. Light was created to stand out in darkness and overcome darkness, to give light, to impact those around us. I think we do a decent job sharing this light when we're at church. We might be standing in the coffee shop, waiting in line, and maybe they're a little slow, but we have patience with them. Or Costner's up here and he may go a little bit longer on his message, but we show him grace because he's a pastor, right? Maybe someone's sitting in your seat right now and you had to really put some forgiveness in your heart. We show our light pretty good here at church, but the moment we leave the church building, we get stuck in traffic, that one's for me. Or we're at the restaurant and our waiter is taking forever to get our meal. And then our meal comes out and it's not even right. Our patience in our light is covered by our hunger in our impatience. The light is not to be covered up. Our faith and good deeds should be seen by people. It should be seen by those who are trapped in this darkness, in this dark world, so that they can see the light of Jesus. The purpose of standing out is not for us to be seen, but for God to be seen in us. Our good deeds is so that God can be glorified by the people around us. We must remember that the light we have inside of us and the power has over darkness. We don't have to shove our lights into people's faces. No one likes a flashlight pointed in their face. That's for those two jokers back there with their lights. See, I'll call you out this time. Or my son, he loves to play the flashlight and he's always like, "Dude, get it out of my face." No one likes that. But light that is displayed properly cannot be ignored. When light is displayed properly, people recognize it because it's vastly different than the darkness that they have been in. I want you to think about what kind of light you have shown in this past year. In your workplace, your family, your friends, is it a light that reflected the characteristics of Jesus or is it a light that reflected your own interests? This upcoming year, let's choose to live a life that displays the light of Jesus so that we can make an impact on the people around us instead of boxing up that light. The second thing is the nativity scene. We have a story to share. I want you to take a moment to think about the greatest story you know. It could be something that's told to you, it could be a book you read, or even a movie. I think this time of the year, we get some fun movies that come up on TV or on Netflix. Some of my favorites is like The Grinch. It's one of my favorite Christmas. Yeah, I like that one too, bud. It's a wonderful life. That's a classic. I love it's a wonderful life. Die Hard is another classic Christmas movie, right? I want you to think about what makes a story so great. Is it the people who are involved in it? Is it because it challenges you to do something different and take action in your life? Or is it because it resonated deeply to who you are? There's some of my own personal stories that I enjoy telling. I won't be able to build up the story like I like to, but I'll kind of give the highlights of when I took my wife to our honeymoon. When I was 23 years old, I was 23. I have a little bit of pride in me. I am cheap. When I thought I had to pay a travel agent to plan my trip. I was like, "I'm not paying someone to pay my trip or plan my trip." I planned my own honeymoon and we fly into Kingston. That's not really where a lot of travelers fly into. We get there, so we have to rent a car because the place we're staying is up to the north of the island. We rent a car and I realize then that they drive on the opposite side of the road. We get there pretty late at night because we end up getting lost in Jamaica, which is a little scary. They don't have street signs. I don't know if y'all know this. Most of it is just landmarks. We end up hiking a mountain at some point. We get in the canoe in the ocean, which was a little crazy. I'd never been in a small boat like that in the ocean before. We also catch this barracuda. It's like a two-foot fish. It's got teeth. It was the best trip ever. I need to let y'all know that I grew up living in different places because of the military. My wife has only lived in one place her whole life. When she tells the story, it's much different than when I tell the story. To her, it's not the best trip of her life. But I love to tell that story because it reminds me of the goodness of God because it is so good that we have good God. I'm surprised we made it back home and I'm surprised that I'm still married. That trip was crazy. Because of who I am, I've got fun, interesting stories like that. But because of who I am, I also have stories that I'm ashamed of. I've got a story that a lot of people are knowing now because of today. But when I was younger, I grew up going to church. But I had never made the decision to follow Jesus. I had a kid who was my friend ask me about Jesus and I denied Jesus in front of my friends because I was so scared of losing a friendship. I was so scared of being outcasted that I denied him in front of my friends. And that story reminds me that, man, it doesn't matter if I go to church. That doesn't make me a Christian. I think our Christmas series was pretty great this year because we got the opportunity to look at four women in the Bible. We got to see their stories. One of a widow of a harlot of an ordinary person and outcast in a young girl who was taken advantage of. We got to hear about their tragedies and the things that were wrong with them. But that didn't matter to God because God still had them part of this great story of Jesus. They are part of Jesus' genealogy recorded in history forever. They had no idea that 2,000 years later, their story would be told in the same time as Jesus' story. Just like Tamar Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba, we may never know how our story impacts the people around us. You could have a story of triumph or a failure, but it can still be told in the same breath as Jesus because we are redeemed by Him. Every one of us has put our faith in trust and Jesus has this story of redemption. A few years ago, I received an activity scene from Rick and it's one of my favorite Christmas decorations that I have. This is one of the lone survivors of that because of my son Shepherd. I think we just have Mary who has a broken knee and a shepherd and baby Jesus. But it's my favorite decoration because it puts the story of Jesus in front of me. And it's a story that I enjoy to read before we open gifts and it's a story that impacts me because it helps me remember that God gave up His Son. John 3.16 says that because He loved us, He gave up His Son. And not only that, Jesus gave up so much and sacrificed to be born the way He did. He gave up His glory. He limited His power. He was born into a poor family who had nothing. He grew up to serve the people around Him and ultimately give up His life. We have the greatest story in the world to tell people. We also have our own story to share as well. 1 Peter 3.15 reminds us that we should be ready to share why we have hope in Jesus. This is not just a Christmas story. This is an everyday story. If we're at the light of the world, we're going to make an impact on the people around us. And people are going to start asking questions of why you have hope. They're going to look at you and wonder how you can walk straight in this dark world. They're going to wonder why you are not sent into a spiraling depression when your family member or your friend dies. And they're going to ask why you have hope for a future when the present can seem so bad. That's when you get to share your story of a broken and ordinary person finding hope in a newborn king who gave up everything so we can have peace with God. You have a story to tell no matter how crazy or simple it is, your story matters. And it's a part of the gospel of Jesus. So take some time before this New Year's starts to make a plan to be in God's Word. There's no way we can tell the story of the gospel without reading it, right? We've got to make sure we understand what it is. And we've got to also take some time to see how our story fits in with the gospel message. So to keep our faith alive daily, we must let our light shine. Daily being God's Word and share the story. And the last thing to keep our faith alive daily is to bear fruit. It's an ornament, right? I'm interested to know what kind of Christmas ornament people we have in here. So I'm going to need some participation. If you are a standard kind of just a ball ornament, is that the kind of, I guess, ornament you like on your tree? Raise your hand. Just the little traditional balls. Okay, what about, this might be more of like how mine is, the novelty, the kind of weird or the Christmas ornaments that your kids make that you kind of have to keep up because you love them? I've got a lot of those on my tree. That's what mine looks like. I enjoyed opening up our ornaments when I was growing up. And because we had a bunch of random stuff. We had favorite football teams, pets, my first Christmas or whatever. And I love to sit down with my mom and dad to hear the stories of where these came from. Like, who gave it to them? Why did we have this? And it was just a great time to see why we had these ornaments. A Christmas tree, sorry. A Christmas tree would not really be a Christmas tree without ornaments, right? It's just a tree that has stuff on it. That's a Christmas tree. But a Christmas tree without ornaments on it is just a plain evergreen tree. Nothing wrong with those trees. I love them. I think they're beautiful. They smell great. But for a Christmas tree to be a Christmas tree has to have ornaments. And it's the same with us. The ornaments is the evidence of a Christmas tree. The fruit of the spirit is evidence of us being a Christian. Jesus makes it pretty clear that in Matthew 7, 15 through 16, beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Now, the context of this scripture is talking about false prophets. But we can also take the principle behind this scripture of knowing someone by their fruits. We can apply that to our lives, right? You will know them by their fruits. The fruit or characteristics of people are evidence of who they are. So if you're producing good fruit, that means you're producing righteous characteristics and that's only produced by the Holy Spirit by those who are following Jesus. If we're walking with Jesus and abiding Him, then we'll produce these fruits of the Spirit. Bad fruit, though, or unrighteous characteristics come from being in a relationship with the world. Sin identifies people as someone who doesn't have a relationship with God. The Bible teaches that if our minds are set on the flesh, then we will walk according to the flesh. So my question to you is, what kind of fruit have you produced in 2024? If someone were to look at your life, would they identify you as a Christian because of the fruit you produced? Or they question if you were a believer or not? I can tell you that I've had some moments in my life in 2024 that I produced some bad fruit. Instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to produce patience in my life, I would lash out in anger. Instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to produce peace, my tongue became a weapon. Instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to produce joy, I allowed my circumstances to produce jealousy and misery in my life. Christmas tree is decorated with ornaments to that represent meaningful moments just as the fruit of the Spirit reflects the love of Christ in us. The key to bearing good fruit isn't just about trying harder, it's about abiding in Jesus. Allowing his spiritual work on us daily. When we do that, our lives will reduce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, selflessness, selflessness, gentleness, self-control. These fruits of the Spirit, these are fruits that the world needs to see in us so desperately. Even in the difficult moments of life, we must recognize that it's better for us to walk in the Spirit than it is to gratify the desires of the flesh. Just like a Christmas tree is known by its ornaments, we will be known by our fruit. Now, I don't get up here very often, but when I do, I want you to understand that I'm not preaching at you. I've been wrestling with this message for a couple weeks now because it impacts me. I'm very much a out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of person. You should see my office, I got sticky notes everywhere so I don't forget stuff. And the same can be about my faith. If I'm not keeping Jesus in front of me, then I'm not going to let my light shine before people. I'm going to struggle to bear fruit. I'm going to struggle to remember that my story, no matter what's going on in my life, is part of the Gospel story. So my challenge for us this next year is to keep our faith in front of us. Remember to let your light shine every day. Tell your story when an opportunity is given and remain rooted in Christ to bear fruit. Understand that keeping Christmas or Christmas decoration up is kind of a weird thing to do year round. It's not something I would do, right? If it was up to me, we wouldn't put the Christmas tree until after Thanksgiving. My wife wants it up November 5th, that's her birthday. But what if we chose to hang maybe some lights in our living room to remind us to be a light? Or if we kept an ornament hanging by the front door to remind us to bear fruit every single day? Or maybe it's to leave just baby Jesus on our TV stand to remember for us to remember the story that we're supposed to share about him and our own story. Not only would this serve a great reminder for us, but it would also be a great conversation starter when people come over, right? Like if I came over and I saw Christmas stuff up in the month of May when we asked some questions. And so what I want to do right now, we're going to close and it's going to be a little bit different. All right, what I want you to do is to get with your family. And I want you to take some time and talk about something literally, like I know I talked about, literally leave something out this year to remind you of bearing fruit, the story, or being a light in this world. So get with your family, talk through it, pray about it, and then join us for worship. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this time to share your word. God, I pray that as our people get together and talk about what they're going to display. God, that you would help them figure out what they need to work on in this next year. And God be with us as we enter in this new year and help us to be a light to share your story and to bear fruit. Amen. [MUSIC]