Welcome And Christmas Warm-Up

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Merry Christmas to you all. Welcome to Coff Hell Bible Today. My name is Michael, one of the pastors, and I'm just excited to get this chance to share this Christmas message or message in the Christmas season to you all. You know, I was just thinking this morning when I woke up and I walked outside, and yesterday it was 75, and today it was 25. I felt like I needed a change. Good job on getting the memo for the sweatshirt, knit sweatshirt. Man, the fact that you're here on a Sunday with the climate change, but also just this is the busiest time of the year. December, it's just there's so many things going on. And here's the deal you made it, so you should get some brownie points, I think. You're here whether you came late or early or excited or exhausted or anxious because Christmas is 10 days away and there's a lot to do before then. No matter what, you're here and I'm grateful for it. So welcome to Coppel Bible today. Now, Christmas time has always been my favorite time of the year. You could ask my mom and dad. I love Christmas, always have, even as a kid. And one of the things that can get me in the Christmas spirit more than anything else, and faster than anything else, are Christmas songs. Christmas songs. In fact, this summer, Jubilee, she's my oldest. Her and I were driving down the road here in Texas. Now it was summertime, but this last summer, let's all admit, it was a great summer in Texas. It was such a mild summer. Lord, get another one this next one. But we're driving down the road. I'm wearing sandals, shorts, a t-shirt, and probably sweating because it's summertime in Texas. And all of a sudden, Juju's riding shotgun, which means she's a DJ. She puts on a Christmas song. It's June. And I instantly know it's a Christmas song and instantly think, why is she playing a Christmas? I don't want to live, I'm not in the Christmas spirit. I don't want to listen to a Christmas song. But like three seconds in, before I could tell her to change it, I'm all of a sudden in the Christmas spirit. I started getting some warm fuzzies, you know, the Christmas songs do that. I started thinking about Christmases of years gone past and all these memories. And then all of a sudden I'm feeling good about life and I want to listen to this Christmas song. That's the power of music, but that's also the power of Christmas music. Now, there are some Christmas songs I think we sing that we just are so used to singing every year. We actually don't look at the lyrics, we don't think about it that much. And some of them are actually pretty ridiculous if you actually look at the lyrics. One of them, and if this is your favorite, I'm

The Power And Pitfalls Of Carols

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so sorry, it has a blatant lie in it. Can I tell you what the lie is? It's in Away in a Manger. How dare you talk bad about that one. Away in a manger. You know what the lie is? It says, talking about little baby Jesus, it says, the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes. What baby in the history of the world has never cried? I listen to that and I just think there's no way that's true. I know it was a miraculous birth, but it there's no way that in fact it's good for a baby to cry. So if you're new and you're like, hey, I I want to have a kid at some point, you know, they cry. In fact, they so they're supposed to cry. The hard part is getting them to not cry. Okay, so that's the thing. So that that uh song is a little bit false, it's a false reality. Then there's another one that I just don't get. And this probably is someone's favorite song. It's my least favorite Christmas song. Doesn't make any sense to me. The Little Drummer Boy. Look, let me just explain it for a second. Let me close the Bible real quick. Let me explain this for a second. Okay, the premise of the little drummer boy is sweet. The kid, he's just trying to think of what to give Jesus. But he thinks that what a newborn baby, a new mom, and a new father need is a drum solo. It's not what they need. I can just imagine at nap time Mary's not thinking, uh, yeah, you know what's good right now if you did a little pump pum-pum-pum. That's not what baby Jesus needs. And if you've ever been around a newborn when music is playing and it's something real loud, a crash, they're they're freaking out. They're trying to figure out what that is. Their brain's jiggling around. I doubt that's what Jesus needed was a drum solo. But uh, you know what? It was sweet of them for thinking of something to bring Jesus, but there is about a thousand other things he could have chosen. I don't get that one. But there's some other songs, Christmas songs, that as we sing them, they have such beautiful truth in them. They have profound

O Holy Night And The Ache Within

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biblical truth in them. And one of my top two favorite Christmas songs has my favorite line out of any Christmas song in it. My top two songs are Silent Night and Oh Holy Night. And in O Holy Night, there's a line that starts early on in the song. In fact, it's so early that you almost skip right past it and get into the rest of the song. The problem is it's the most beautiful, profound truth that speaks to everything that Christmas points to. If you know O Holy Night, it starts out with these beautiful lines about O Holy Night, the stars are brightly shining. It's the night of our dear Savior's birth. That's the start of it, and it sets the scene beautifully. But here comes my favorite lyric: long lay the world in sin and error pining. Till he appeared, and the soul felt its worth. This line stops me every time I hear this song. I think about this lyric, and it is so beautiful to me. The word pining, if you don't know what it means, it means to long after, to ache. It means that you're reaching out because you know there's something else out there, and you're just reaching to hold on to something, but you're just grasping air, you're pining. It's not like you're just discontent. It literally means it's the depth of your soul, it's a deep ache in your soul, which is why this line is so beautiful. That that's how we feel, that's how the world is because of sin until he appeared. Until the Savior, the promised one, came. Now, I think we know this longing today. I think everyone in this room, even if you're a little kid, I think you know that there's something more. There's a there's another point to life, there's something bigger than what's going on in my life that literally everything else points to and is supposed to be about. There's a longing that's so deep, I don't even think we can name it sometimes. We ask questions like, well, why are we even here? What's the point of life? Is this, though it can be great at times, all there really is? You know, when I was a kid growing up at Christmas, uh at Christmas time, it was my favorite time of the year. And we'd always go to my grandparents' house in Arkansas. They lived on about five acres and we're driving down this old highway, and I could see their house about three, four hundred yards off the road. And we'd start going down that long, uh muddy, usually uh driveway to their house, and I'd see their Christmas lights. I see the reflection of the lights off all the family cars that are already there. I see their big window at the front of their house that goes into their living room. I can see the Christmas tree, I can see the garland and the silver bells. And even right now, saying that, I can tell you what it smelt like when you walk in. It's gonna smell like cinnamon rolls, it's gonna smell like bacon, it's gonna smell like coffee, and it's gonna smell like oak wood. That's what this house was like, and I loved it. But as a kid, I thought I was a little bit strange because I'd have these moments every Christmas at the most joyful time. I mean, I set my yearly calendar up in my mind based on this trip. I'd have these moments where I would get emotional and sad, and I couldn't pinpoint why as a kid. I I couldn't understand why I am supposed to be joyful. Now, I was also a little bit ADD, so that sadness lasted for like half a second, and I'd move back into joy or whatever else I was doing. But the reality is, even as a kid, I realized there's something else. There's something more. Now, as an adult, I really understand it. Uh I wonder if this line resonates with you. Even when life is good, our souls know this world is not enough. Like the best moment you've had, it went away. So is life about just having a bunch of best moments? I mean, that's a great thing in life, a great gift. That yes, you want a lot of great things happen in your life. Pray they happen, I hope they do. But is that the purpose and the point of life? C.S. Lewis, the famous author, writes this in Mere Christianity. If I find in myself a desire which no experience

Childhood Joys And Unnamed Sadness

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in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. What Lewis is saying is the longing that's in all of us, it is not random. It's actually a clue that should push you to the Creator, that should push you to the fact that there's something else bigger and better than what this world has to offer. And so it's this quiet reminder in the depths of your soul that this world is not all there is. There has to be something else out there. Now, C.S. Lewis says that, but you know where I find my ultimate truth from is God's Word. You know who says it in God's Word? The man dubbed as the wisest man to ever live. And Ecclesiastes, he's writing, uh Solomon, King Solomon's writing this book, and he's talking about his experiences, and he's richer than all of us combined would ever be. He's had more pleasure in his life, he's done more things. He built forests, y'all. I mean, the guy just did everything. And he comes out and goes, you know what, but it's all for nothing. Vanity. It's what it is, what this life is. It can't be the ultimate thing, it's just your satisfaction here and now in this experience we call life. There has to be something bigger than this. And in Ecclesiastes 3:11, this phrase in the middle of the verse, he gives us insight. He says, God has put eternity in our hearts. Meaning right now, every single person in here, you were made for something eternal. You were made for something divine. You were made for God Himself. Now here's what tends to happen we feel the longing and we go chase for fulfillment. You know what? Not necessarily wrong. I love my wife, I love my kids, I love this uh the this calling here at Cockel Bible, I love the experience of my life, I love the fact I was adopted. I love all these things about my life, but those things need to be in their rightful place. All great gifts given to me by the Creator, God. So there's good things we can chase after to find fulfillment, but we also know, and if we were gonna be honest, we'd all raise hands on this one. There are bad things we chase after, looking for fulfillment. Feeling empty, having the longing, the waiting, and you want to take control, and so you chase after things that you know won't fill you up, and all of us, especially adults, we know that's true. We know we chase after things that we know we shouldn't. We don't chase after things we know we should. This is the experience of all humans. So, what's the point of all of this? What's the point of life? Ecclesiastes 3.11, God has put eternity in your

Lewis, Solomon, And Eternity In Us

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heart. You were made for God. Which is why when I was a kid, I would get sad knowing that December 26th was coming. No more presence under the tree. Tree needs to be put up, the lights need to be put up, the family needs to disperse and wait for the next year. That's why I wasn't ultimately fulfilled. Had these moments of sadness, even as a kid, those moments are bad, but they were never meant to be the ultimate meaning of our lives. So let me say it this way: God put eternity in your heart so you would never mistake the gifts for the giver. But we do it, we flip that around a lot. We think all these great gifts are the point of life. They are good things. A lot of them are really great things, but they can't ever fulfill the deepest longing of your soul. And whenever we decide to let those things do it, we're setting ourselves up and whatever that thing is for failure. That's why the song calls it pining. It's a deep, holy ache, a longing that won't go away, a reaching for more, but not being able to get it. Waiting. What's the answer? Now, can I just give you some encouragement? We're not the first people uh on this planet to experience it. I don't know if you knew that, but the people before us and before them and before them, they've all experienced this deep longing before Bethlehem ever had a star glowing over it, before the shepherds were ever fearful because the angels are pronouncing what's happening on this holy night, before Mary and Joseph ever held sweet swallowing Jesus, there was a longing that the people of God had. The world was waiting, longing, aching, looking for a savior. In fact, this may feel like an odd thing to say at Christmas time, but I think the Christmas story doesn't start in the New Testament. I think the Christmas story starts in the beginning of the Bible in Genesis chapter 3. See, in Genesis 1, God makes all things, he says they're good. He makes humans the the best of the best of all of it, and after that it's now complete, and he says it's very good. That's Genesis 1. By Genesis 3, it goes very bad. Sin enters in. And what that ultimately does is separates us from this relationship with the one who created us. And when sin enters in, all kinds of other things now happen. Shame enters in, regret enters in, bad decisions enter in, ultimately a longing to get back to what it was before. That's when the longing started. But the good news is God didn't walk away in that moment. Right there in the middle of the wreckage, he makes a promise to the serpent. And he, this is the promise in Genesis 3:15. He says, the seed of the woman is gonna crush the serpent, meaning someone's gonna come from her line that's gonna make all things right again, gonna defeat evil once and for all, make all things new as they were in the beginning. That's gonna happen and be like that for all eternity. This is the first whisper of Christmas. This is the first glimpse at the Savior. This is the first prophecy and promise of the coming Messiah. And as you go through the Old Testament, as it unfolds, what you see God doing is taking this 315 kind of broad brushstroke of, hey, God's gonna send someone at some point down the road to make things right. And thank you, Lord, for it. But there's no details. Well, how long, when, who's it gonna come by, like how long do we have to wait? But throughout the Old Testament, he begins narrowing through promises and through prophecies. Just nine chapters later in Genesis 12, he's speaking to Abraham, and in Genesis 22, he also says this, that through your family, someone's gonna come through your family, Abraham, to which all the nations are gonna be blessed. At the end of Genesis, Genesis 49, he's talking to Jacob, as is

Chasing Gifts Versus Knowing The Giver

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Abraham's grandson, and he says that there's gonna be a Messiah that's gonna come through one of your sons, Judah, the lion of Judah. Then you get to David in 2 Samuel 7, and he says, one of your descendants is now gonna sit on an eternal throne. So not just a savior's coming, but he's gonna come through the lineage of Abraham. He's gonna come through the tribe of Judah. He's gonna actually be a royal line through the Davidic king. Then you get to Isaiah, and there's a couple places in Isaiah that speak to this. They give more detail. God's like, oh, Isaiah 7, a virgin's gonna conceive and bear a son. Can you imagine the longing? Is that tomorrow? When is that? He goes on in Isaiah 9. A child will be born, a son will be given, his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And even in even in Isaiah 7, he says that they're gonna name him Emmanuel, God with us. So you have all of these prophecies, and then you start thinking, is it tomorrow? When's this coming? I don't want to long anymore. I want to have the answer here. I want to know the Savior. Well, when's he getting here? I hate the longing. My soul hurts, I'm chasing everything. And then you keep going through the Old Testament and you're like, it's not this book, it's not this chapter. Then you start getting towards the end of it, and you're in Micah, in Micah 5, 2. He gives us one little glimpse again. Oh, and he's gonna be born in Bethlehem. And you're like, when? I'm longing, I'm waiting. Throughout the Old Testament, God's sharpening the picture, he is narrowing the promise of the Savior, the exact tribe, the exact family, the exact line, the miraculous birth, and the location of it, promise by promise, detail by detail, generation by generation, and Israel would have lived with a growing anticipation of knowing, all right, he's coming, he's coming, the answer to life is coming, and then silence. After all the prophecies, after all the promises, after all the longing, heaven goes quiet. There's no prophets sharing, there's no angels speaking, there's no visions, there's no miracles, there's no word uh from the Lord, just silence for 400 years. 400 more years of longing, 400 more years of pining, 400 more years of Lord, have you forgotten about us? What about your great promise? All the many promises throughout the Old Testament. I wonder if uh how many of us have ever felt that, that we we pray and nothing moves, or going, Lord, I've been praying for a while and nothing's moving. I wonder how many of us don't just pray but we hope and nothing changes, or we long, but we just don't know how long we're gonna have to be in that longing season. But it's into that ache, into that weight,

The Longing Begins In Genesis 3

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into that seemingly helplessness that Christmas begins. You know what I find kind of intriguing about Christmas beginning? You you would have thought, if we were in charge, that you would have had this great revival going on, and then all of a sudden you bring Jesus in after all this groundwork's been done, and then it's like there's the answer, and it's great. But you know how uh the Christmas story begins with government paperwork God used something the government was doing for his good pleasure, that's a sermon for another time. He can use government good or bad, however he sees fit, and at this point there's a census that needs to be taken. And so Mary and Joseph, this teenage girl and this soon-to-be father, take off by foot and on donkey to Bethlehem, and in that quiet corner of Bethlehem, the promised Savior was born. Let me read it to you. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David. Now he went to be Register with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. And so it was that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered, and she brought forth her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger. Because there was no room for them in the inn. Now they were in the same country, shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. But the angel said, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which is going to be for all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you. You'll find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger, and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts that were praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill towards men. That's the answer to the longing. Jesus is the answer to your longing. After generations of longing, after centuries of silence, after a world that was pining for rescue, God didn't send the concept, God didn't send the philosophy. God sent himself as the answer. A baby in a manger came to step into our ache and to give us in our longing a name, a faith, a being. What's interesting is he wasn't born in a palace. He wasn't born in Jerusalem, which is the religious center. Maybe you thought that's where he should be born. He wasn't born in Rome, the political center. Maybe

Promises Narrowed Through The Prophets

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that's where we think he should be born. He wasn't born in Athens, the intellectual center, or maybe that's where he should be born. He was born in a back town of Bethlehem. He came low and he came near and he came for all the overlooked and all those longing. This simply means Christmas isn't just a history being fulfilled, though it is, don't get me wrong, but it's something else. It's not just history being fulfilled, it's something being revealed for us in the human need. In fact, if you step back and you look at the entirety of the Christmas story, there are three truths I want to leave us with. Three truths that kind of rise to the surface about God, about you. Here's the first one your longing proves you are made for God. This is kind of wild to think. That desire for more, the desire for searching, that if we look for things on this earth, it seems insatiable because nothing can give it to us. That's a desire. You are made for something else beyond the whatever this world has to offer. Every person in this room is longing right now for something. Success, approval, security, forgiveness, reconciliation, uh, maybe a fresh start. But hear me, your longing is not a problem. Your longing is evidence. It's evidence that there is something else beyond this world for you. Your longing doesn't mean God's far, it means he's the only one who can actually fill that void. This is why Jesus came, this is why he appeared, this is why Christmas even happened to answer the longing in the human soul that God made in Genesis 1 and 2, and that got disrupted in Genesis 3. One of the early church league leaders, uh Augustine, said it this way, and I'm gonna say it like he wrote it because I think it's beautiful. He says, Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in thee. And that raises the question how do our restless hearts actually find the rest that we can have? Well, this takes us to the second truth. Only Jesus can satisfy your longing soul. I feel like we could just look at that and the sermon be over. This is the answer to life. This is the answer to your questions, this is the answer for your longing. Only Jesus can satisfy your longing soul. Did you notice what the angel said in Luke 2? He didn't say, Hey, good news, a teacher is born. And he's gonna lecture you about the longing soul that you have. Notice he didn't say, Hey, good news, uh a moral example is born, and just watch him and you'll figure out how to live life and you'll find fulfillment that way. Just kind of emulate him, just watch him. That'll be good enough. In Luke 2, the angel says, For there is born to you this day in the city of David a savior. Because our longing needs a rescue. Not a teacher, not a philosophy, not a guru, not a moral person needs a savior. What sin broke in Genesis 3, we long to have back, but we want the sin out, but we can't do it on our own. We need a savior. Luke 2.11 says a savior showed up. And only Jesus can fill the spaces that nothing else in this world reaches. Nothing can reach. It's because eternity was set in your heart. Jesus didn't come only to forgive you of your sins, though that's awesome, and he did. He came to fulfill your soul. He didn't come just to get you into heaven one day. He came so heaven

Four Hundred Years Of Silence

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could be in you now. Only Jesus can satisfy the longing you carry. And here's why this matters. Some of us think, and I've had this thought before, I've placed my faith in Jesus as a kid. I believe in Jesus. The question is, why do I still feel restless at times? The answer isn't that Jesus is insufficient because he's not. Christmas is simply, it just reminds us, but a relationship is what's going to sustain us because you're never meant to grow in this love and desire for other things of the world and not put them in the right context and the right place with Christ at the top. You're meant to grow daily with Him. Take it to Jesus. You got addictions you chase after because you're trying to escape the world or you've been escaping for so long, now it's a habit in a path. Take it to Jesus. We go get counseling and all those things that are needed too, but but take it to Jesus. Time of family, friends, laughter, gifts, memories, all these great things that the Lord has given us. Thank you, Lord. But I would be saddened if we stepped into January feeling empty. And that's gonna happen if you don't have a daily relationship with Jesus. So, what do we do with this longing? How do we handle this longing? We take it to Jesus because the baby in the

Bethlehem: Humble Answer To Our Longing

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manger becomes the savior on the cross. He is the savior. The answer, the point, the fulfillment, the eternity in your heart has a name, and the name is Jesus. Romans 5, verse 8 says that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And this is good news because this means he didn't wait for you to clean yourself up because we can't clean ourselves up. He didn't wait for you to have a track record that shows, like, oh, you've you're getting a little bit further along than you were last time. Okay, I think it's legit now. Now, now you're worthy. He doesn't wait for us to be worthy. We can't be worthy. He's not waiting for you to fix yourself. He can't fix yourself. He came for you right where you are right now. Or even if you're in a good place, what about when you weren't? Though you're worse, he came for you. And your soul will never feel its worth until it rests in what Jesus has done for you. So if you're here today and you've actually never placed your faith in him, you've never received this free gift of everlasting life that the Savior came to give us. It's as simple as receiving it. It's a gift received by grace. Nothing you can do, you can't earn it. But Jesus came, he's a savior. He went to the cross and he gave his life. So the separation that happened in Genesis 3 is now paid for. The sin is now paid for. And now your soul can have a right standing before God because you can believe in Jesus for this gift of everlasting life. And then you get the chance to walk with him daily. And let your soul here and now be fulfilled daily. Look, if you've never placed your faith in Jesus, man, it would be the greatest Christmas gift you could ever receive. And I don't say that cliche, it's the truth. It's the greatest gift you could ever receive. It would be as simple as right now, where you're at, in your heart, in your mind, going, Lord, I want to receive this. That's it. I just want to receive this gift. And if you have and you're like, what does it look like to walk with him? Look, we put devotions of each sermon online. So we have five devotions we we write up and we send out. And on Monday, you can start getting into this text, having this relationship with the Lord, seeing what that's like. But I'd also encourage you to come find me or Barkef down here. We'd like to give you some resources and help you figure out how do you live this life for him. But I want to make sure first that you've trusted in him for everlasting life. Let me end with this. I know we know this, but you were made for him and nothing else will ever be enough. You're gonna hear lies from the devil even this week, but they are not true. They are simply lies. You were made for him, and nothing else will ever be enough. See, the God who placed eternity in all of our hearts refused to stay distant. Heaven came down, hope entered the story, and when he appeared, our soul felt his worth.