Let’s read the story of Jesus together. Luke 2, the birth of Jesus. In those
days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the
entire Roman world. So, Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea to
Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house in line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who
was pledged to be married to him, and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be
born. And she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in
clothes and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them. And there were shepherds living out in
the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them,
and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be
afraid. I bring you good news. It will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David, a savior has
been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in clothes and
lying in a manger. Suddenly, a great company of the heavenly hosts appeared with the angel
praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heavens, and on earth peace to those on whom his
favor rests.” When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds
said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they
spread the word concerning what had been told to them about this child. And all who heard it were amazed at what the
shepherd said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned glorifying and
praising God for all the things they had heard and seen which were just as they
had been told.
One of the blessings about being online is that we have people tuning in from all over the world to gather right here
and worship the name of Jesus. So, if you’re a guest with us or if this is your first time, welcome our team. We’re
so excited that you’re joining us for our Christmas Eve candlelight service. And we actually have a gift just for
you. So text the word CC connect to 97,000. Fill out that really quick
digital connect card and your gift is going to be sent right to your inbox. And also if you live near one of our
locations in Belleview, Dupont, Tacoma, or Yaka, we would love to see you in
person. There is nothing like gathering with other believers and worshiping Jesus together. So, for Sunday service
times and locations, just click the link that’s provided in the chat. This Sunday, the 28th, is Watch Party
Weekend, and all of Champion Center is going to be joining us right here online starting at 10:00 a.m. This is the
perfect opportunity to invite a few friends over, share some brunch, and experience church together. You can join
us for Watch Party Weekend on our website, which is CC.urch Facebook or YouTube. We cannot wait to worship with
you. And right now, we’re going to continue to worship and honor God through our
giving. You can prepare your regular tithes and offerings by following the instructions that you see right there on
the screen or clicking the link in the chat. While we are giving gifts and celebrating Christmas, let’s make sure
that we don’t leave out the birthday boy of our gifts giving. Let’s include the mission of Jesus as we give this
Christmas season. His mission was to establish his kingdom and we can be part of that mission by building the kingdom
through the local church. God modeled for us what it means to be a giver. He
gave the gift of sending his one and only son into the world. Gave his life
for his church and for you and for me. We can thank him for all that he’s done by giving to the work of building his
kingdom right here on earth. So church, be blessed as you honor God through your giving today.
Wow. How beautiful is that? Seeing all of those kids. Well, this is Christmas
Eve and I think I’m going to get teeyed.
I think it’s been a long time. Why am I crying? I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I’ve had my
This is a happy moment right now. I know it on the platform with me. And it’s so exciting because you know Mama
Bear, she loves to have all of her kids here. and this is a joy for me. So,
and also we want to welcome our other locations as well. Belleview, Dupont
online, and here in Tacoma. We are so glad that you guys are here
and oh, and Yakima. I forgot. They’re just they’re just so far away. Yaka, my bad. But we love Yaka. We love all
you guys and we’re so glad that you’re here joining us for this Christmas Eve service.
Okay, so we were talking about this earlier and um Cody, I would love to let
you tell everybody what your favorite Christmas song is this year.
Um Christmas morning by Forest Frank. Do you know it? Do you think all the
parents should play it for their kids? They should play that song for their kids this Christmas. Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
Definitely. I want to commend all of the families. It takes a lot to get out of here. It’s
a lot of energy. It’s a lot of effort. And in today’s world, there’s a lot of
noise and there’s a lot of things and more than ever before. We need to be bold about our faith.
Yeah. And so I just want to commend the moms, the dads, the grandmas, grandpas, the papas, and the gi’s for putting all the
effort and energy to be here because Jesus is the main thing. We have all the
other stuff we’re doing, but he’s the main thing. So I want to commend you. Give yourself a hand clap. All the
locations. And from our family to yours, we want to
wish you all a very merry Christmas. Amen.
You know, we didn’t plan what we were going to say and and what Ryan just talked about. I
just wanted to I came I came up here thinking I just want to tell all the families, you know, we’re we are
we are a united family, a family that really loves one another. And we serve
Jesus like we all serve him. He is our King. He is our Lord. And if there’s any
families who are here tonight that would just say, “Oh, that’s a you guys have it
better than us.” We really don’t. Um, we’re just like you in many, many ways. And we’re we’re we’re really imperfect
in many ways. But I promise you, if you will make up your mind and say, “As for
me and my house, we’re going to serve the Lord.” You’ll see that God gets in your life and does special things.
So, right now we’re going to go to the message. And this has been a season where we’ve been talking about celebrating Jesus. And I pray that this
message tonight is a blessing to all of you. Merry Christmas.
[Music] [Applause]
Merry Christmas everyone across all locations. To all of our church family,
we want to tell you that we love you. We care about you. We thank God for you. And I am going to talk tonight on the
topic of what’s so great about Jesus.
What’s so great about Jesus? Sheila and I got to know someone recently who knew
nothing about Jesus. Like imagine that
until we started to tell her. I mean, she didn’t even have any idea that
Christmas was connected to Jesus.
And as we talked about Jesus and we began to listen to her questions and
answer her questions, it’s like Jesus came alive again like in all in our
hearts. And that’s what happened, you know, when when when you began to reflect on something and you began to
talk about it to somebody else, you began to share something that is meaningful to you, the value of whatever
that is you’re talking about grows within your heart. That’s what I want to do on Christmas Eve. I I just want to do
this for our church family and all of you who are gathered. I want to talk about the greatness of God and the
greatness of his son Jesus. Maybe you don’t know much about him. And my hope
today is that if you don’t know much about him, I I can give you some information that will will raise his
value, make you more aware. And then if you do know him, I just hope that I can
raise and elevate his value again for you on this Christmas holiday.
I want to begin with a writing in the book of Isaiah by the prophet Isaiah.
600 years before the baby was born in
Bethlehem, Isaiah wrote these words, “For to us a
child is born, and to us a son is given. The government
will be on his shoulders, and he will be called. Wonderful counselor, mighty God,
everlasting father, prince of peace.” I’m going to ask you if you would to just say with me that first line. Say
with me, for to us a child is born. To us a son is given. This is not just one
reiteration of the first line with the second line. It’s literally two things that the
prophet was saying. He said, “A child will be born on earth.” And then he’s
elaborating and he says, “And a son would be given from heaven.”
We had an opening song tonight that had a line in it. Son of man,
son of God. And you may not know this, maybe you haven’t really thought about it, but when you hear the phrase son of
man, son of God, it’s a reference to Jesus in his dual nature. He is the son,
a son of humanity. And he is a son of
heaven. Fully man. Everybody say that with me. Fully man. Fully God. Say it again.
Fully man. Fully God. The next line reads like
this. And if we can just read it or say it together. And the government will be
on his shoulders. Let’s do that again. And the government will be on his
shoulders. First thing you need need to hear is that you’re not talking about Congress, Senate. He’s not talking about
any of that. Let me explain it to you. The Hebrew word translated as
government. Literally means dominion, power, or sovereignty
through legal authority. So, so hear me out on this. Sin up until
that time had a legal consequence of death on humanity. Since the sin of
Adam, all men, all sin had to be atoned for. And and and in the
Old Testament, they used a lamb or they used an animal sacrifice. But what
happened was with the New Testament and the plan of God is that Jesus humbled
himself. I’m talking about his greatness. He took on the sin of the
world, your sin and my sin. And the cross
represented dominion over sin.
The Bible explained it like this in Colossians that Jesus disarmed
principalities and powers. He made a show of them
openly triumphing over them by the cross. So think about that. He put the cross on
his shoulder. He carried the cross on his shoulder. The government will be
upon his what? Upon his shoulder. And today it’s the finished work on the
cross that provides us this higher government, the government of grace
where we are pardoned for our sin. Our sin is pardoned
literally because of the cross. The cross says that our debt has been paid. And when we point, you know, when
condemnation comes and we point to the cross, it it says, “No, wait a minute.
There’s a higher law now. There’s a higher power now where where we are completely forgiven and pardoned for our
sin.” That ought to make somebody happy. I’m talking about the greatness of
Jesus. He won. He won. He won. He won. like the the Christianity is the only
belief system in the world that offers salvation by grace through faith. Hear
me out on this. The only one. Buddhism has no savior. Islam has no savior.
Hinduism has no savior. Judaism has no you go on and on. No savior. No savior.
No savior. But as Christians, we have a savior. That’s what’s so great about
Jesus. And this message was delivered by the angel Gabriel to shepherds on the
night that Jesus was born. It says in Luke 2, Gabriel says, “I bring you good
news that will cause great joy to all the people.” Good news that will cause
great joy today in the town of David. A savior has been born to you. He is
Messiah, the Lord. I think we ought to clap our hands right now. Come on. Thank him for salvation. Thank him for grace.
Thank him for his goodness in our lives today.
Wow. Wow. Wow. Thank God. Thank God.
Many of you tonight, you know, you have no hope without him. You know that you don’t have any salvation without him,
but you put your faith in him and we celebrate. We celebrate our salvation
not by works but by grace. So let’s go back to Isaiah’s writings. It says, you
know, Isaiah went on after he said, “A child is born, a son is given, the government on his shoulders, and then he
said he will be called.” And he starts a list names and he gets, I think, four of them out. Wonderful counselor, mighty
God, everlasting father, prince of peace.
But that list doesn’t stop there. That list is now a whole lot longer
with many, many thousands of descriptions of Jesus.
We know he is the miracle worker. We know he is the way maker. We sing songs
about it. He is the door opener. We know Jesus is the hope of the world. He is
the Lord God, our provider. He is our healer. Help me out right now. Come on. He is our teacher. He is our guide. It’s
all about Jesus. He has become everything
to us. And that’s why we get excited and we celebrate him on Christmas.
No one impacted the world like Jesus. Think about it. No one. Kings and
governments. No one. He was the most significant person that has ever walked the earth. Our calendar is literally
separated into BC and AD because of Jesus. He didn’t just change history. He split history. He didn’t just write a
book. No, he didn’t even write a book. He inspired the most influential book of all time. So, he never held an office
yet he changed every nation. He is one of one. He is unmatched.
The scripture says besides me there is no savior. There is no other. He is one
of one. So, a child born in Bethlehem became the hinge of history. And we thank God for Jesus, don’t we? Let’s
clap our hands again right now. Let’s celebrate a little bit. Jesus and all that he is to us.
I want to just talk a little bit about the historical significance that I think a lot of people don’t recognize or
understand or know about and tie it into the the teachings in the life of Jesus
that goes it goes way back there. You know the let me say this. Let me preface what I’m talk about by saying the last
50 to 100 years there’s been a historical a lot of historical revision and people with agendas. Don’t forget
this when you Google something or you look something up. People with agendas have been rewriting history, which means
that a lot of historical truth is being removed and being revised
and being replaced by propaganda.
The good news is that history has Jesus
all over it. His fingerprints are all over history, through history,
in history, in people. And and so he will never be eliminated.
There will the church will never be wiped out. Those who don’t know God’s
goodness can never silence those of us who do.
We take all of the goodness. If we take all of the blessings and we go back,
think about it with me. Jesus told his disciples
to be the light of the world. Okay? He said to them, you it’s like tag your
you are the light of the world. He told them you are the salt
of the earth. And then he told them, “Spread my
message. Go out to the highways. Go to the byways. Go to everybody you can. Just
spread the message that I’m bringing to the earth. Spread it through the whole
earth.” And that’s exactly what began to happen. It was unstoppable.
The book of Acts, people commented about Jesus’ followers
after Jesus had died and was resurrected and they were like a fire like they were
on fire for God and the message of Jesus bringing hope to towns and communities
and they said they they called them the people who turned the world upside down.
They they turned the world that they had they had such a passion to get the
message of Jesus out. And the point I’m making is that this is where so much of
what we now experience that is good got started. You can trace back
so many of the good thing. I’m just going to name a few to Jesus. you. I’m going to name a few like the value of
human life. The value of human life. Christianity changed how the world sees
the value of human life. In ancient Rome and and Greece, like they they they just
if babies were born with a defect, they would be left outside the city to die. They would put them in trash heaps and
and Christians would began to rescue babies and and and bring them into them
their home that that they they knew that Jesus was saying you are valuable. You are important. Every person is important
to God. Like he he taught that and it and it began this understanding that we
have today that we’re all made in the image of God. That’s it all started with Jesus. They
revolutionized the mindset in ancient in the ancient world to say we are all made
regard in the image of God, regardless of the color of our skin, regardless of our ethnicity, regardless of our
background or where we came from. That every human being is made in the image
of God. The sanctity of human life is a
Christian idea. hospitals and health care comes out of
not government system but it comes from Christian compassion
nursing health care were shaped by devotion to Christ. People like Florence
Nightingale when you study like she served the sick because of her devotion
to Jesus. with Jesus began the abolition of
slavery. The abolition of slavery was driven by Christians with biblical
conviction like they were driven to to say this is not right
and and throughout history I know there been many twists and many turns but Christians
began to reolutionize mindsets of the world. Let me take you back. One of the
things Jesus told his followers was he said, “You have heard, but I say unto you.” And that’s exactly what he was
doing. He was taking all that they had heard and all that they knew up into that time
in the ancient world. And then he was bringing an opposing view to it. And and
all of these things I’m saying, I’m just naming a few were were birthed in his
teachings and through his followers. His followers promoted education.
They founded our universities. The first universities were founded as Christian
universities. Think about that. Isn’t that amazing? Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge were founded with
Christian roots by believers in Christ. Christianity promoted education for all
classes of people, not just elite people. In the writings of St. Augustine, he observed that Christian
women were better educated than the pagan male philosophers of the day.
How did that happen? Because up until that time, women were not educated.
But when the Christians began to have influence and began to be the salt of the earth, I hope this inspires all of
us today to not just value our history, but to want to continue on to to have an
impact on society. Every branch, every level of education
was pioneered by Biblebelieving Christians. The study of science is another one. Science grew out of faith,
not in opposition to it. the study of the earth, our galaxy, the universe. And
if you hear it talked about in modern day, it’s like, you know, science and God don’t go together. Oh, yes, they do.
Like, like science, it it backs up the word of God. Archaeology supports the
word of God. All of these studies, all of this research was prompted by this education by bibleelving Christians
exploring the great God of the universe that Jesus represented to mankind.
All the progress, all the innovation, things like the printing press changed
the world. And the first book printed was what? It was the Bible.
So hear me when I tell you no movement has changed the world for the better
like Christianity. It all points back to Jesus. When you
walk through a hospital or you drive by one, it all points back to Jesus. When
you see kindness toward others and when you see love with people and when you
see people of different ethnicity and background rising above bias and attitudes that
would cause us to be to, you know, to to not dwell together, live together, love
one another. You see that happening? It all started back there with the message of Jesus and scripture and the followers
of Christ. So what are you saying, Pastor Kevin? I’m saying that you don’t
have to believe in Jesus to be influenced by him. History
already has history already has. All around you is
the works of Jesus, the message of Jesus, the lifestyles of Jesus.
God sent Jesus to the world to change
the world. But he didn’t just send him to change the world.
He came to change your life. In fact, let me say it like this. God
marked you. He marked you. Have you ever heard of laminan?
Laminine is essentially the glue holding the tissues of our body together, our
physical body. And I want to show you a picture under a microscope of lamin.
What do you notice about it? Do you see it?
Now, let me show it to you in a textbook form taught in our schools and universities. Yep. That’s laminant.
laminant structure taken from a textbook.
You see, this is what’s so beautiful. He marks humanity
as belonging to him. So whether you accept him or not,
I mean, you still have free will, that’s up to you. But he has marked you. He has marked you.
Colossians says it like this. This is this is incredible. Colossians says, “In him all things hold together.”
Wow. Wow. Wow. He’s holding you together. He’s been
holding you together.
You may wonder like in your in your life, where where’s God been? He’s been holding you together. He’s been there in
your deepest trial. He’s been there in your struggle. The cross has been there
in in the battles that you’ve been through ever since you were born
into the earth and in the world like you’ve been marked as belonging
to him symbolically. He marked you with the
cross laminate so that you could see that the cross is
for you. It’s not just for other people. It’s not just for those of us who are
standing on platforms belonging to a church,
pastoring by profession. No, no, no, no, no. The cross is for you. Cross is for you. Cross is for your children. The
cross is for your friends. The cross is for every human being. It’s like his
higher law imprinted in you and marked in you that says you’re mine. I marked
you as belonging to me. You you don’t have to accept it. You get a choice. But I marked you. I already decided that
that I love you and I care about you and you belong to me.
I want to give you an opportunity to say yes to his offer of salvation.
His salvation through the cross, through the promise of eternal life through Jesus. by raising your hand right now.
And by raising your hand wherever you are in whatever room you’re in,
you’re saying, “I receive
your salvation, your love for me. I put my trust in you.” Maybe I’ve not known
how great you are, how big you are. Maybe I haven’t thought about it. Maybe I haven’t really realized, but I know right now in this moment, I know you
care about me and you love me and you want to give me eternal life. Hands are going up right now. God bless you. God
bless you. What a beautiful opportunity, a beautiful moment for anyone who has not yet really decided or for some of
you who there’s been a marginal belief to to just step out and to raise your hand and say, “I put my trust. I’m
thankful. I’m thankful for my salvation. I receive it. It’s my hope.
And I’m going to pray with you and I’m going to ask you to say this prayer while your hands still raised up in the air. Say this out loud. Say, “Lord
Jesus, welcome to my world. Forgive me of all my sin.
Come into my heart. I receive the gift of eternal life.
In the name of Jesus, I pray.” And everybody said a great big amen. God
bless you. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the family of God.