1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:16,400 Hi everyone, this is Emma from Encounter Church Henley and thanks so much for tuning into our podcast. 2 00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:22,600 Our prayer is that through this podcast you can have an encounter with Jesus that will change your life. 3 00:00:22,600 --> 00:00:27,100 And now get ready for an inspiring message from our preaching team. 4 00:00:27,100 --> 00:00:35,000 We're going to try this. Hi everyone. Hey, sorry that was really loud for my left there. 5 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:41,000 Okay, for those of you who don't know me, we're all doing introductions tonight just to be safe, right? 6 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:45,200 My name is Tex and I am also one of the pastors here at Encounter Henley. 7 00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:50,200 And again, I also just want to extend my warmest welcome and thanks for you all for joining us here tonight. 8 00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:52,000 Christmas Eve is an exciting time. 9 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:58,900 If it's okay with you, I'd love to bring a little bit of a message about Christmas and about Jesus because we're at a church and it's Christmas. 10 00:00:58,900 --> 00:01:00,900 So it felt like the right way to go. 11 00:01:00,900 --> 00:01:08,900 One of the things I was thinking about as I was preparing for today is that I realized that when I think about Christmas, 12 00:01:08,900 --> 00:01:12,900 I never ever think about Australian Christmases. 13 00:01:12,900 --> 00:01:18,900 I always think of chunky sweaters like what Pastor Mike is wearing over there, beautiful numbers like that. 14 00:01:18,900 --> 00:01:21,900 I think about hot chocolates by the fire. 15 00:01:21,900 --> 00:01:33,900 I think about, you know, like coming home for Christmas with my arms full of presents and the door flings open and I'm stumbling over my niece or nephew and, you know, there's hugs and the auntie squeezing on the cheeks and all that. 16 00:01:33,900 --> 00:01:38,900 And then that's kind of mental because that's not my reality at all. 17 00:01:38,900 --> 00:01:40,900 That's never been my reality. 18 00:01:40,900 --> 00:01:42,900 We do live in Australia. 19 00:01:42,900 --> 00:01:55,900 And if you are planning on wearing a really chunky sweater tomorrow or drinking hot chocolate in front of the fireplace, I would love to have a little chat with you after the service because I just want to see how your well-being is going over all, you know, we just need to check in on these things. 20 00:01:55,900 --> 00:02:11,900 And I think the reason I think of Christmas like that and when I talk to other people that they seem to think of Christmas like that is because that's this really beautiful like movie-ified Christmas that we've all been fed from the States where it is, you know, snowing and cold right now. 21 00:02:11,900 --> 00:02:14,900 It's not really our reality here. 22 00:02:14,900 --> 00:02:21,900 So it's really highly on, if that's not really my reality, it's really highly unlikely that that's ever been your reality either. 23 00:02:21,900 --> 00:02:26,900 Not for all. I know we've got Hannah up the back there. I'm sure that's been her reality of the cold fireplace. 24 00:02:26,900 --> 00:02:37,900 But like for so many of us, homecomings, be it for Christmas or be it for anything at all, they very, very rarely look like the movies. 25 00:02:37,900 --> 00:02:43,900 To some, the idea of returning home is one of excitement and anticipation. It's full of joy. 26 00:02:43,900 --> 00:03:00,900 And for some of us, it doesn't look like that. It brings with it a sense of dread or fear where we humble ourselves back to our kind of childhood origins because it doesn't matter how old you get when you go home, you are still the kid. 27 00:03:00,900 --> 00:03:11,900 The privilege of rating the pantry that you didn't pay to fill comes with other things, right? So it's just, it cannot be the best experience for people and it can be super uncomfortable. 28 00:03:11,900 --> 00:03:18,900 It can feel uncertain. And unfortunately for some, it can also feel like a sense of obligation. 29 00:03:18,900 --> 00:03:39,900 Now, we rarely think of the birth of Jesus, the Bible story, the Christmas story in that way. But in reality, the origin story of the birth of Jesus actually looks a little bit more like the latter than the former. 30 00:03:39,900 --> 00:03:44,900 We have this move-ified version in our head, but that's not really the way that it went down. 31 00:03:44,900 --> 00:03:49,900 We have this version where Mary and Joseph have nowhere to stay. There's no room at the ends of the baby Jesus. 32 00:03:49,900 --> 00:03:53,900 It is born in a stable wrapped in a cloth, laid in a manger, right? If you are a Christian here tonight, you know that. 33 00:03:53,900 --> 00:03:59,900 If you're not, you know that. You could have resided that. You could have probably gotten us to right here. 34 00:03:59,900 --> 00:04:05,900 But Joseph and Mary's return to Joseph's homeland wasn't born out of desire. 35 00:04:05,900 --> 00:04:11,900 It was born via, as we heard from today's teaching text, via a decree from Caesar Augustus. 36 00:04:11,900 --> 00:04:23,900 So as a result, what we have is a young man and his heavily pregnant betrothed on like a lazy 150 kilometer trek by foot. 37 00:04:23,900 --> 00:04:34,900 For those of you who have had a very pregnant partner, that, I can't imagine, would have gone down that well if that had been my suggestion, like, hey, baby, if we go time to do the Kokoda Trail, right? 38 00:04:34,900 --> 00:04:50,900 That's just not ever going to go down, right? So it's this reminder that that origin, that the homecoming was actually, was actually not born out of desire, but born out of an obligation, born out of an expectation. 39 00:04:50,900 --> 00:04:56,900 The flip in that is that in doing so, it also fulfilled a prophecy. 40 00:04:56,900 --> 00:05:06,900 Mary and Joseph, by the way, are kids, really. Mary's estimated to be between anywhere from like 14 to 16 years old. 41 00:05:06,900 --> 00:05:12,900 So that was my daughter, Cadence, that was up here. She is almost 15. So think of that, if you will. 42 00:05:12,900 --> 00:05:22,900 Joseph's only a few years older. Mary is carrying a pregnancy from before they were married, which, you know, at the time, quite the no-no. 43 00:05:22,900 --> 00:05:30,900 They've actually, from what I can find, they've got no family support in Bethlehem. So they try the inn, which is full, as we all know. 44 00:05:30,900 --> 00:05:37,900 The funny thing is, we actually don't have any reason to believe that even if the inn wasn't full, that they would have been able to afford a room at the inn at all. 45 00:05:37,900 --> 00:05:43,900 Luke's Gospel later actually tells us that when they go to the temple, they give the offering of a poor person. 46 00:05:43,900 --> 00:05:48,900 So what we're finding here is that disposable income is not exactly the name of the game over here. 47 00:05:48,900 --> 00:05:58,900 So they're not dripping in wealth or privilege or support. They are two kids, far from home, fulfilling an obligation. 48 00:05:58,900 --> 00:06:04,900 And I promise, you're like, Jesus, this is quite the Christmas message, right? I promise. We're going to start to turn here. 49 00:06:04,900 --> 00:06:15,900 But what I love is, in a way, is that it's into this, into this period, into this kind of humble beginning. It's into that that Jesus is born. 50 00:06:15,900 --> 00:06:20,900 Swaddled in basic wrappings, laid in a manger, behind an inn. 51 00:06:20,900 --> 00:06:28,900 It's into this where a baby is born who changes everything, where the hope of the world is found. 52 00:06:28,900 --> 00:06:36,900 Honor, power, status and wealth, Jesus is born into none of it. 53 00:06:36,900 --> 00:06:42,900 And the beginnings of Jesus' story actually continue to be echoed throughout his entire life and his entire ministry. 54 00:06:42,900 --> 00:06:47,900 Jesus' whole life was one born on lowering fences, inviting in the least likely. 55 00:06:47,900 --> 00:06:54,900 He made the wealthy nervous and he made the poor hopeful. Why? 56 00:06:54,900 --> 00:07:05,900 So in order to really answer that, we need to recognize there is a real importance in that the fact that we do not sanitize the birth of Jesus. 57 00:07:05,900 --> 00:07:15,900 Because in doing so, when we go to that moverified version of the birth of Jesus, we actually miss the miracle. 58 00:07:15,900 --> 00:07:26,900 The miracle is that the birth of Jesus is marked by the King of Heaven stepping down into the mess of our lives to provide love and hope in abundance. 59 00:07:26,900 --> 00:07:35,900 Now, Pastor Bethany Allen of Bridgetown Church reminds us of this, is that hope in Jesus isn't a rescue from a circumstance that we find ourselves in. 60 00:07:35,900 --> 00:07:41,900 Hope is about God entering into our circumstances with us. 61 00:07:41,900 --> 00:07:44,900 And that's exactly what happened. 62 00:07:44,900 --> 00:07:59,900 God sent his only son down to earth, to us, born as a baby, to grow and to learn and feel and live and experience absolutely everything that we do. 63 00:07:59,900 --> 00:08:05,900 So why do we need hope presented to us in this way and revealed to us in this way? 64 00:08:05,900 --> 00:08:12,900 It's because hope, much like love, isn't a polite sentiment that we just hand backwards and forwards. 65 00:08:12,900 --> 00:08:20,900 The concepts of hope and love don't actually mean anything unless it's personal. 66 00:08:20,900 --> 00:08:30,900 And what could be more personal than knowing and experiencing and feeling everything that you and I have known, experienced and felt? 67 00:08:30,900 --> 00:08:40,900 This action, this decision made to deliver hope and salvation through the humblest of beginnings was the beginning of Jesus offering a mission on earth. 68 00:08:40,900 --> 00:08:55,900 God could have sat on high on a heavenly throne and left us to wrestle with our sin and our doubt and our brokenness on our own, and he didn't do that. 69 00:08:55,900 --> 00:09:04,900 And I love it because the origins of the birth of Jesus are at their very heart, a reminder to us that there are no barriers that keep us distant from God. 70 00:09:04,900 --> 00:09:11,900 That there's nothing in our beginnings, there's nothing in our past, there's nothing in our story, there's nothing in our lives that actually deem us unworthy. 71 00:09:11,900 --> 00:09:20,900 A reminder, again, Jesus was born to unwed parents into poverty, into a stabler, the back of an inn. 72 00:09:20,900 --> 00:09:27,900 None of that, all of that for me, sorry, just wraps up that idea that those are these humble beginnings that don't create a boundary. 73 00:09:27,900 --> 00:09:35,900 Jesus was sent so that through his life, death and resurrection, there was nothing that would ever prevent us from being able to come home. 74 00:09:35,900 --> 00:09:45,900 And unlike everything else we've ever put our hope into, hope in Jesus is actually the only thing that brings with it a guarantee. 75 00:09:45,900 --> 00:09:50,900 Because this hope makes way to an eternal homecoming. 76 00:09:50,900 --> 00:10:00,900 And that's a homecoming that's free of dread, it's free of fear, where anxieties aren't necessary, where the homecoming always looks like the end of the cheap Netflix movie. 77 00:10:00,900 --> 00:10:06,900 Where everybody's happy and smiling and everything goes well. 78 00:10:06,900 --> 00:10:14,900 But it's a homecoming that all began with the humble arrival of a baby. 79 00:10:14,900 --> 00:10:23,900 Pastor Tim reminded us on Sunday, Jesus made his home on earth so that we could come home to God forever. 80 00:10:23,900 --> 00:10:26,900 In reality, that's kind of what the gospel is, what the birth of Jesus has always been about. 81 00:10:26,900 --> 00:10:33,900 It's an everlasting hope founded in humility and sealed with the promise of an eternal homecoming. 82 00:10:33,900 --> 00:10:38,900 That's why we're all gathered here tonight, that's why we sing the songs that we sing, that's why we have the experiences that we have. 83 00:10:38,900 --> 00:10:47,900 And maybe that homecoming, maybe that homecoming is something that you just know to be true. 84 00:10:47,900 --> 00:10:55,900 Maybe it's something you've never considered or maybe it's been an awfully long time since you thought about it at all. 85 00:10:55,900 --> 00:11:06,900 And I just want to take tonight to remind you and allow you to reflect on the fact that this homecoming through Jesus is for you. 86 00:11:06,900 --> 00:11:10,900 It's for all of us, but it's for you. 87 00:11:10,900 --> 00:11:21,900 No matter your story, no matter where you're currently at, Jesus was born as a baby and given for the world so that we always had a pathway home. 88 00:11:21,900 --> 00:11:28,900 And what I really love about this is that this homecoming, this promise, this offering, it's not a one time thing. 89 00:11:28,900 --> 00:11:41,900 Like it's not a take it now or leave it, is that you don't come home once and then get kicked out when something goes wrong or something goes bad or you forget to make it better a few times. 90 00:11:41,900 --> 00:11:46,900 It's not a, it doesn't end when you forget how you got there to begin with. 91 00:11:46,900 --> 00:11:51,900 It doesn't end when you think, feel like that pathway home feels impossible. 92 00:11:51,900 --> 00:12:00,900 Because thanks to a baby born over 2000 years ago, no matter the circumstances or the journey, that door to your home is always open. 93 00:12:00,900 --> 00:12:03,900 Jesus made sure of it. 94 00:12:03,900 --> 00:12:09,900 Now the great Tim Keller summarizes the Christmas message so beautifully for me. 95 00:12:09,900 --> 00:12:19,900 Keller says, Christmas means that God has gone to infinite lengths to be close to you. 96 00:12:19,900 --> 00:12:29,900 So tonight on Christmas Eve, as we gather in anticipation of the celebration of Jesus' birth of hope and of a homecoming. 97 00:12:29,900 --> 00:12:34,900 I want you to think about that line for a second. I'm going to repeat it because I think it bears repeating. 98 00:12:34,900 --> 00:12:41,900 Christmas means that God has gone to infinite lengths to be close to you. 99 00:12:41,900 --> 00:12:49,900 Now God has made huge strides to be close to you and really all that happens from there is you then get to make a choice. 100 00:12:49,900 --> 00:12:58,900 This is the beauty of the way that God has settled this up is that he has chosen to be close to us, but that is not, that has to be reciprocated. 101 00:12:58,900 --> 00:13:04,900 In order to really feel and see and live out the gospel message, you then have to choose to receive that. 102 00:13:04,900 --> 00:13:11,900 You have to choose to see that to recognize it, to accept it. 103 00:13:11,900 --> 00:13:14,900 Thanks so much for tuning into this week's message. 104 00:13:14,900 --> 00:13:20,900 If you felt challenged or need prayer, we'd love to hear from you on Instagram at Encounter Henley. 105 00:13:20,900 --> 00:13:28,900 Or if you're interested in how you can support this ministry, please go to our website, EncounterAdelaide.com.au. 106 00:13:28,900 --> 00:13:35,900 Thanks again for listening. God bless you.