Forrest: How amazing were those kids this morning and our kids' team?
Forrest: Can we just give some shout out and some praise to them right now because that was a beautiful moment.
Forrest: And some of you have been holding back on serving in the kids' ministry, and I want you to take the step in, to join them and start serving with them.
Forrest: You saw the joy on their faces and what God is doing as they are learning about Jesus.
Forrest: And there's somebody in here who's been holding back, and there's a connect card under your seat.
Forrest: And I would love for you to take the step to join that team, to check off team, to take a step into serving kids this Christmas.
Forrest: I love it.
Forrest: God is doing amazing work in this place.
Forrest: And I also have to celebrate because we had a pretty amazing Sunday last Sunday with our outpour offering Sunday.
Forrest: Praise the Lord.
Forrest: And I don't have a total number to give you because gifts are still coming in.
Forrest: But I will tell you this it's record-breaking.
Forrest: Praise God.
Forrest: But what I truly want to celebrate, what I truly want to celebrate today with you, is the faith step of 23 of our friends and family, brothers and sisters, who made the decision to give for the very first time and take a step of faith to trust God with their life and with all of their life and with their finances and took the step to give for the very first time.
Forrest: And y'all didn't clap loud enough for that.
Forrest: We need to give it up for 23 of our brothers and sisters.
Forrest: For their step of faith.
Forrest: Truly, it's a step of faith.
Forrest: In joining Jesus in gratitude and in generosity.
Forrest: And there's some of you who missed last Sunday, or others who haven't yet been able to bring and give your best.
Forrest: And you can do that through our website or through the giving station at the back of the room now through the end of the year.
Forrest: And I'm believing that God is going to bring some more people to trust Him for the very first time.
Forrest: Don't you believe that, church?
Forrest: I'm believing that.
Forrest: I'm believing that because He's growing our faith.
Forrest: He's growing our faith collectively.
Forrest: If I've not met you yet, my name is Forrest Coleman, lead pastor here at Multiply.
Forrest: Glad that you are here with us.
Forrest: Our church is just a short two and a half years old, and are thankful that you're here this morning to worship with us.
Forrest: Again, there's a connect card under your seat.
Forrest: We'd love to connect with you and get to know who you are as we're jumping into this sermon series, Christmas Collision.
Forrest: The National Safety Council reported, and this is this may be shocking to you, it may not be shocking to you, that one in five car accidents happen in parking lots.
Forrest: One out of five wrecks happened in parking lots.
Forrest: Now you can imagine that this time of the year that increases because of all the craziness that's going on in the holidays and all the parking lots that are filled.
Forrest: And uh when you're thinking about this, and uh it's kind of shocking to me, that that has led to uh yearly 60,000 injuries and 500 deaths in parking lots across the nation because you know why, and I know why, because of distracted driving and because of the Christmas chaos.
Forrest: The Christmas chaos.
Forrest: Now, you're probably feeling it.
Forrest: I know I'm feeling it, the stress that comes, that you gotta make everything right and perfect, you gotta get the perfect gifts, and you're running around trying to make everything happen.
Forrest: You gotta do all the planning, get all the right stuff.
Forrest: This week I with uh my wife went to uh my daughter's Christmas uh their their uh their concert that they have with for their school, and in the hustle and bustle of trying to get her there to sing at the venue, we were we were rolling and trying to get there.
Forrest: We're coming from two different directions, and we rolled up, we were 15 minutes early, but the place was already full because we weren't 30 minutes early, like all the better parents.
Forrest: And so we got my daughter dropped off to the teacher, and then we're looking to try to find the seat, but it's all full, and so we ended up in the balcony, and we're trying to figure it all out.
Forrest: And I leaned over to my wife and I said, I'm feeling like the Grinch right now.
Forrest: And she looked back at me and she she leaned back over to me.
Forrest: She said, That's a choice.
Forrest: Oh my attitude didn't sound very much like the good news of great joy that the angels proclaimed in it.
Forrest: Isn't it crazy somehow?
Forrest: In all of the chaos of Christmas, it's so easy for us to miss the point.
Forrest: The title of my message today is Rethink and Rejoice.
Forrest: Turn to your neighbor and say, Rethink.
Forrest: Turn to your other neighbor and say, rejoice.
Forrest: See, we are living in a culture right now that tells us that the joy of Christmas comes from getting it all right.
Forrest: Having all the right presents, the right decorations, the right plans.
Forrest: But the the story of Christmas, we're gonna see that it's much different.
Forrest: See, as we rethink, as we refocus, and we rejoice in what truly matters.
Forrest: Getting all the parties and the presents and the planning and seeing those things, trying to make them perfect, there's this pressure that can cause us to miss the point of what this is all about.
Forrest: As we take a look at the Christmas story, that you've probably heard a number of times, or maybe you're hearing it for the very first time today, what we're gonna see from this story is that literally the world is turning on its head.
Forrest: And it starts by the fact that the angels come and proclaim this newborn king to a group of lowly, outcast shepherds that are just out in a field doing their shepherd stuff, and then the heavens are opened, and the glory of God shone around them and proclaimed the good news of the great joy that is of Jesus, and the fact that the angels came to the shepherds in the middle of the field doing their shepherd stuff, and not to the elites and the religious, was a big get lost to all the elites and the religious.
Forrest: All the Pharisees and all the religious leaders that thought that they had it all figured out, they had the perfect plan.
Forrest: The Messiah was gonna come one day to restore Israel, and he was going to ride into Jerusalem and was gonna be a military leader, and they had all these plans of how the Messiah was gonna come, and instead the angels come to the outcasts on the outside of the city and proclaim that Jesus was coming and was born and laid in a lowly manger, a feeding trough.
Forrest: Dirty, gross, the savior of the world, and the world is turned on its head.
Forrest: We're gonna look at it now.
Forrest: Look at that with me.
Forrest: If you have your Bible, you can turn to Luke chapter 2, starting in verse 8.
Forrest: If you've got your phone app, look it up on your phone, highlight it.
Forrest: Luke chapter 2, starting in verse 8.
Forrest: We'll have it on the screen as well.
Forrest: That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep.
Forrest: Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the glory of the Lord's glory shone around them, and they were terrified.
Forrest: But the angel assured them, Don't be afraid, he said.
Forrest: 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.
Forrest: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.
Forrest: The angel comes with a message.
Forrest: The angel comes with a message about the tangible historical reality that Jesus, the Savior, has come.
Forrest: The real story.
SPEAKER_00: Not the Hollywood, not a movie version.
Forrest: The real story.
Forrest: See, I don't know about you, but for me, me and my family, we've been watching Christmas movies over the last few weeks with the kids, and we've watched some classics.
Forrest: We've watched Frosty the Snowman.
Forrest: We've watched uh Santa Claus is coming to town, the claymation, it's creepy, but it's classic.
Forrest: We've watched Miracle on 34th Street, and I realized that all the movies we've watched thus far have had nothing to do with Jesus.
Forrest: He hasn't even been a character.
Forrest: The story hasn't been told.
Forrest: We've been doing the Christmas thing, the American Christmas thing.
Forrest: But mind you me, I'm gonna be finding some movies with Jesus in them to show my kids.
Forrest: Because Christmas is just 10 days away.
Forrest: Just 10 short days away.
Forrest: See, I don't know if you're like me, but I would imagine that some of you have already felt the chaos and the fact that Christmas is 10 days away, and you can't even believe that it's 10 days away because there's 10 days away because there's so many things that you still have to do, and so many things that you've done, and we have all this pressure to have the perfect Christmas without Christ.
Forrest: It leaves us stressed and exhausted, and we're missing out on the reality.
Forrest: The reality of that night in Bethlehem.
Forrest: And so we're gonna rejoice in some things today this morning.
Forrest: Are you good with that, church?
Forrest: And the first thing that we're gonna rejoice in is in the reality of Christmas.
Forrest: See, the angel's message that came to these shepherds, it wasn't about tradition, it wasn't about uh feelings, it was about the Savior who had come to rescue us.
Forrest: And the reality of Christmas is that Jesus has arrived and he's the greatest gift we could ever receive.
Forrest: And it happened 2,000 years ago.
Forrest: See, that's the reality of the situation because the world wants us to have a Christmas that's that's all about tradition and sweetness, but God says it's about salvation.
Forrest: The reality that Jesus is with us, God with us, Emmanuel.
Forrest: And this Christmas, we're rejoicing in the unchanging reality that Jesus has come to bring joy and hope and salvation to this world.
Forrest: Can you rejoice in it?
Forrest: Can you let the reality of the story of Christmas truly sink in this year?
Forrest: Let's keep reading.
Forrest: Verse 13.
Forrest: Suddenly the angel was joined by a vast host of others, the armies of heaven, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to peace on earth to whom God is pleased.
Forrest: And when the angels have returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, Let's go to Bethlehem, let's see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.
Forrest: The angel comes and is joined by a host of angels and proclaims Glory to God on the highest and peace on earth.
Forrest: And I don't know about you, but a lot of times my Christmas experience for my family is the opposite of peace.
Forrest: It's like the busyness of the holidays, it's like peace is just some distant dream.
Forrest: See, the reality is that we're all longing for peace.
Forrest: Peace in our relationships, peace in our circumstances, peace in our own hearts.
Forrest: And somehow in the middle of the season, that we're proclaiming God's peace towards men that it escapes us.
Forrest: Because we feel like the only way that we're gonna have peace is when all the presents are bought and they're all sitting nicely under the tree, and I got a cup of hot chocolate, and all the work is done, and then there'll be peace.
Forrest: All the running around, all the late nights staying up on Amazon, looking for the perfect gift, when all that stuff is done, then there'll be there will be peace.
Forrest: But I want to just kind of take this from a different angle for a second.
Forrest: And I want to talk specifically to the men in the room for a moment.
Forrest: Uh all my men hit me with an amen.
Forrest: We could be better with that.
Forrest: Men hit me with a real manly.
Forrest: Everybody say amen.
Forrest: Amen.
Forrest: Woo! Like that.
Forrest: I like that.
Forrest: That was better.
Forrest: See this scene that we see of the sky splitting open and the angels coming to proclaim the good news.
Forrest: I love the NLT and the fact that it actually says that it's heaven's armies, because some of the other translations say the host of heaven or the heavenly host.
Forrest: But but what you need to know is that I want us to divert from the Hallmark Christmas card picture of this moment for a second.
Forrest: With all these angels all in these nice robes up there with a halo on their head.
Forrest: No, actually, the word that's used there of the the angel, the armies of heaven is this Greek word that's it's it's uh it is uh stratia, which is actually a military word.
Forrest: See, it has a military connotation to it.
Forrest: So what I'm trying to tell you, men, is that when the sky split open, it wasn't just just Christmas card, a bunch of choir robe angels up there, prim and proper.
Forrest: No, these were warrior angels.
Forrest: These were warrior angels who in this moment, as they proclaimed the peace of God to come to earth, it was a battle cry.
Forrest: See, they're proclaiming the peace that's going to come because the king is finally born.
Forrest: See, because what had happened is up until this point, the chaos of sin, the cosmic battle that had been going on for some time, finally and that night, the thing that was promised right after sin into the into the world, back in Genesis chapter 2, and the fall of man, and the the eating of the fruit, and sin entering the world, and the chaos that ensued from that moment in Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, we have the promise of the coming Messiah for the first time in the scripture, and the scripture says that the enemy will strike his heel, but that the savior will stop and will smash the head of the serpent.
Forrest: And it's on that night that the sky split open and the warrior angels proclaimed a battle cry in front of everyone, that it's finally time.
Forrest: It was a declaration of war.
Forrest: It was a declaration of war that night of the cosmic war that had been planning it out for millennia.
Forrest: The declaration was a revelation.
Forrest: Worship the king, the true king.
Forrest: And so we're gonna rejoice in the revelation of Christmas.
Forrest: See, the world's trying to tell us that we're only gonna have peace.
Forrest: But if you're in Christ, we have peace because of what he's already done.
Forrest: Because of what he's already accomplished.
Forrest: Because Jesus didn't stay a baby.
Forrest: He lived a perfect, sinless life for 33 years.
Forrest: And had a ministry filled with signs and wonders and healing.
Forrest: And he spoke the truth.
Forrest: And he eventually went to the cross.
Forrest: And he died a death in your place and in my place that we deserved because of the chaos of sin.
Forrest: But it was because of Jesus and what he did.
Forrest: The peace finally came to men.
Forrest: Because of what started on that night.
Forrest: And we're gonna rejoice in the revelation of knowing that it's Jesus who is the one who brings true love and true peace through what he's done.
Forrest: See, we're all looking for peace.
Forrest: And it's Jesus who is the peacemaker.
Forrest: And he even tells us in Matthew chapter 5 that blessed are the peacemakers.
Forrest: We're not just these peacekeepers.
Forrest: No, we're people who make peace, and we join Jesus in making peace.
Forrest: So who is it in your life that you need to make peace with this Christmas?
Forrest: Who is it in your life that you need to share the peace of Christ with?
Forrest: That right now they're far from it.
Forrest: Or your relationship is strained, or the chaos of sin has broken the peace.
Forrest: And you need to join Jesus.
Forrest: And the reality and the revelation of the story of Christ that He came to bring us peace.
Forrest: Let's keep reading.
Forrest: Verse 16.
Forrest: They hurried to the village and they found Mary and Joseph, and there was the baby lying in the manger.
Forrest: After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child.
Forrest: All who heard the shepherd's story were astonished.
Forrest: But Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often.
Forrest: The shepherds went back to their flocks and glorified, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.
Forrest: And it was just as the angel had told them.
Forrest: The shepherd's response was to tell everybody.
Forrest: The shepherd's response to what they had just seen, experienced, heard from these angels, this army, this unbelievable night.
Forrest: Their response was to tell others about it.
Forrest: I don't know if you're like me, but sometimes I can feel I feel like it could be incredibly awkward to tell people about what Christmas is really all about.
Forrest: I mean, half the time they don't even want us to say Merry Christmas anymore.
Forrest: They just want to say happy holidays or whatever they want us to say.
Forrest: But there's a there's a natural overflow of the joy that we get by the fact that just like the shepherds, we find joy in the fact that this good news that we have, it's not about getting everything white, right?
Forrest: It's about the one who is perfect who's come to earth to save us.
Forrest: It's not about us being perfect on our own because we can't.
Forrest: It's about us being filled with the joy of Jesus that once we were lost and now we're found.
Forrest: That a Savior King was born 2,000 years ago to die for us.
Forrest: And the world just wants us to keep it private.
Forrest: Keep it private.
Forrest: But it's God who's called us to proclaim it.
Forrest: It's God who's called us to proclaim it, just like the angel armies proclaimed it, just like the shepherds then proclaimed it, and we're going to find joy in the retelling of Christmas.
Forrest: We're gonna find joy in spreading the hope that we have in Christ, glorifying him.
Forrest: Him by telling the true story of Christmas.
Forrest: What truly happened.
Forrest: The salvation that came through a child that one day would come from the cross.
Forrest: From walking out of the grave, and we rejoice in it.
Forrest: I was thinking about this time last year, and this time last year, our Christmas services were at the Elizabeth, the Elizabeth venue downtown.
Forrest: And boy, we had a great time.
Forrest: We were set up and tear down pros at that point.
Forrest: We went in that joint and a mother in just a matter of hours had transformed it into this Christmas wonderland.
Forrest: Had our time and the Elizabeth, it was beautiful.
Forrest: And we packed it all back into the trailer.
Forrest: But my favorite thing about that night was that there were a few people that night who gave their life to Jesus.
Forrest: One of those was a middle school girl named Amaya.
Forrest: Amaya, who's the granddaughter of Chuck, who's in our church.
Forrest: I love Chuck.
Forrest: And Chuck invited his granddaughter that night.
Forrest: And she accepted Christ as her savior.
Forrest: And a few weeks later, Chuck baptized Amaya here in this house.
Forrest: And not only Amaya, not only Amaya, but also his grandson Xavier as well that morning.
Forrest: And I wonder, I wonder who else?
Forrest: Who else needs to know the true joy of Christmas?
Forrest: And understand the God of the universe who came to earth and put on flesh and dwelled among us so that we might have a right relationship with God, that we would not be separated from him in a place called hell, but live forever in a place called heaven because of what happened 2,000 years ago and a night in Bethlehem.
Forrest: The people that are in our life who just so desperately need to hear it.
Forrest: I want you to do a favor for me.
Forrest: Under your seat, there is an ornament that looks like this.
Forrest: This is a gift to you.
Forrest: If you grab it, will you grab that for me?
Forrest: Give me a favor.
Forrest: It's under your seat.
Forrest: Everybody should have one, hopefully.
Forrest: It says the outpour on it.
Forrest: This is this is the celebration of what God's doing in our church.
Forrest: This is a gift for you to take home.
Forrest: When my family, when we were putting up our Christmas trees, our Christmas tree, we were putting up some of these ornaments, and we had some ornaments from church, and this one's for you.
Forrest: This is a gift for you to put on your tree.
Forrest: And I don't know about you, but my family, we always write stuff on the back of our ornaments.
Forrest: And so there's also a little tiny Sharpie marker under your seat.
Forrest: Will you grab that for me too?
Forrest: Real small one.
Forrest: And we always put like the year on the back of ours.
Forrest: You can put the year down, 2024.
Forrest: But I want you what I want you to do is I want you to write on the back of this the name or initials of somebody who's in your life who is close to you but far from God.
Forrest: Somebody in your life who needs Christ.
Forrest: And I'm going to talk for a while longer so that you have time to do it.
Forrest: And some of you, as soon as I said that, that person popped into your mind.
Forrest: And I want you to write it down right now.
Forrest: I want you to write their name down.
Forrest: They're not going to see it.
Forrest: They're not going to see this.
Forrest: They're not coming to inspect your tree.
Forrest: But as a prayer, some of you are thinking, trying to think about who that person could possibly be.
Forrest: See, I want you to write it down because us collectively as a church, we're taking a moment here to reflect, reflect on the reality of Christ's birth and what it means for us, not just this week, but every week.
Forrest: And that we're going to reveal, we're going to reveal God's peace and his love in this chaotic world.
Forrest: And we're going to actively retell the story of Christmas together.
Forrest: And I wonder, as you write this name down, I don't know what God's going to do.
Forrest: But maybe by this time next year, like Chuck's granddaughter and grandson, they'll be saved and baptized.
Forrest: Because of his work, because of his power, because what he could do through you.
Forrest: To love them and reveal to them the hope that we have in Christ.
Forrest: The hope, the whole reason for this season.
Forrest: The hope of God that we have.
Forrest: Who is it?
Forrest: Who is that person in your life?
Forrest: And as we think about collectively as a church and we rethink some of the Christmas traditions and things that we have and we're going to do over the next 10 days, maybe you need to reflect and think about what it looks like for you to be able to reflect on Christ's birth and for you to do something this Christmas season that you haven't done before that would be meaningful and Christ-centered, something intentional.
Forrest: Maybe it's reading Luke 2 with your family for the first time at Christmas or on Christmas Eve.
Forrest: Just so that the reality of the true story of Christ is first and foremost in your home.
Forrest: Can you just imagine with me?
Forrest: The joy of Jesus replacing the stress.
Forrest: Being overwhelmed and what in worship.
Forrest: Instead of overflowing in anxiety and celebrating what Jesus did for us.
Forrest: I'm believing.
Forrest: I don't know what God's going to do.
Forrest: But I know this as you walk out today, there's going to be some invite cards that are there on the doors on your way out for a Christmas service next week.
Forrest: And I would love for the person that's on your ornament, maybe for you to take that card to them and to invite them to be here next Sunday.
Forrest: Because yeah, we're going to celebrate and we're going to have a Christmas fun, but we're going to share the gospel of Jesus.
Forrest: And we're going to share the truth of Christ so that people can come to know him.
Forrest: See, there in a room this size, I know that in a room this size, there are some folks that are in here today that there is chaos right now in your world because of your own sin and your own brokenness and ways that your life right now is going in the wrong direction.
Forrest: And I want to tell you today, Jesus has made a pathway for you to turn and walk straight to him and leave the chaos behind of sin and walk into the forgiveness that comes from the hope of Jesus, of him being born one day in a manger 2,000 years ago and dying on the cross in your place, and today could be your day to turn away from the chaos and turn to Christ today, right now, today.
Forrest: Somebody in this room, maybe it's you.
Forrest: Father, I pray all across this room, God.
Forrest: Glory to God in the highest.
Forrest: We're here with you, God, to celebrate what you did for us by coming at Christmas time in a lowly manger and going to the cross and dying in our place to forgive us of our many sins.
Forrest: And so, Father, right now, as we've written down names and people who've come to mind, God, I pray, Lord, that you would help us to be people who are ready to share the hope that we have with the invitation to you.
Forrest: And Father, right now, I pray in this place, if there's anybody in this place who's not received you as Savior, that today would be the day that they do that.
Forrest: They wouldn't wait.
Forrest: But today they would receive you.
Forrest: Today they would ask for your salvation.
Forrest: For the first time, put their trust in you, receive your gift on the cross for the forgiveness of their sins.
Forrest: If that's you today, I want you to pray from a genuine place to your heart.
Forrest: Jesus, save me.
Forrest: I believe that you're the Son of God.
Forrest: Pray this.
Forrest: I believe that you're the Son of God.
Forrest: That you came to this earth.
Forrest: That you died on the cross, and that you walked out of the grave.
Forrest: Forgive me.
Forrest: Cleanse me.
Forrest: Wash me as white as snow.
Forrest: So that I can be in heaven with you one day.
Forrest: Thank you for saving me.
Forrest: I give you my life as you gave yours for mine.
Forrest: Heads bowed, eyes closed.
Forrest: Today you prayed to receive Jesus as your Savior, so that you might be forgiven and free.
Forrest: Healed and holy in his name.
Forrest: I wanted you to take a sign and make a sign towards heaven to proclaim it.
Forrest: In just a moment, I'm going to count to three, and I'm going to ask you to raise your hand.
Forrest: And I want to see you and be able to pray for you if that's you today.
Forrest: I want you to raise that hand up at the count of three, real high, as a sign towards heaven, if that's you.
Forrest: So if you received him as Savior today, at the count of three, ready.
Forrest: One, two, three, raise your hand up.
Forrest: Anybody in this place?
Forrest: Father, I pray and right now, God, I ask for you to seal and to save and to bring salvation to this place.
Forrest: God, for people that we know and people that we love, that God, they would come into right relationship with you.
Forrest: And God, right now, during this Christmas season, we honor you above all.
Forrest: We praise you above all.
Forrest: We give you all the glory and all the honor and all the praise forever and ever.
Forrest: In Jesus' mighty name, we all said, Amen.
Forrest: Church, will you stand to your feet now as we worship and as we sing together and celebrate?