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– – – – – – – Joyce Meyer, one of the world’s leading practical Bible teachers and New York Times best-selling author, shares encouragement and advice to help us enjoy our daily lives. With a heart to share Christ and love people, Joyce’s messages help people in all walks of life to grow in their faith, learn to study the Bible, find healing from the wounds of life, get answers to life’s questions and encounter the love of God in a powerful way. #JoyceMeyer#EnjoyingEverydayLife#Holiness
what is Christmas it’s a fresh
opportunity to remind you as you
approach this New Year bow down
recognize his lordship and confess it if
we confess him we get delivered by him
that means you can’t be a secret Asian
Christian and Christmas is a reminder to
come out and be known as a follower of
Christ that I belong to Jesus Christ and
that I bow
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down
I hope that this has been a meaningful
series uh thus far as we’re completing
our four-part series on the on the
meaning of Christmas it is my contention
that its real meaning has gotten lost in
our culture in our lives and even some
to some degree in our churches and I
just want to remind us of things we
probably already know but but need to be
reminded of about what makes this
holiday so powerful and so special uh if
you are are are viewing and you have not
seen the previous three sessions where
we dealt with uh the person of Christmas
where we dealt with the purpose of
Christmas where we dealt with the uh
perspectives of Christmas uh then feel
free to contact us at the urban
alternative and get the the whole series
on uh the meaning of Christmas because
this is a most important holiday because
it surrounds a most important
person everyone who knows me knows that
I love football football is my favorite
pastime I’m passionate about it when I
was young I was passionate about playing
it when uh my son came along I was
passionate about following him when he
played it uh so I’m passionate about
football everyone who knows football
looks at football follows football
understands that it’s all
about the
football I mean everything in the game
is about this pig
skin uh first downs are determined by
where you place that football
touchdowns whether that football breaks
the plane of the goal uh incomplete or
complete passes did you catch the
football the placement of the ball is
where the ball was when the when the
runner fell
down uh when you have field goals it’s
did the ball go between the
uprights is all about this football it’s
it’s
amazing that
this piece of
leather has spawned a multi billion
dollar
business I mean it’s made millionaires
out of people it’s brought sponsors in
people eat and drink around it
televisions are turned on to it all
because of the
positioning of this one little thing so
this one little thing is bigger than
this one little thing
yes
Christmas it’s about this one little
thing that isn’t so little because it’s
affected the
world you think about
it Jesus Christ never wrote a
song that there more songs written about
him than any person in
history he never wrote a
book but his book The Bible has
outsold every other book in
history um he never traveled more than
300 miles from
home yet you can’t go anywhere in the
world where his name is not
referenced and where he is not
recognized on some
level so this is not an ordinary name
like a football is not an ordinary ball
it it has spawned all kinds of of things
from
it all in his
name because Christmas is about Jesus
Christ at
our church I have a master
key and this master key unlocks all the
doors individuals have individual keys
but I have a master key that can go
anywhere in our
facilities because it’s designed to work
everywhere
Jesus Christ is the master key to
understand Christmas but how do you get
this master key to unlock doors in your
life how do we make Christmas and its
meaning practical and prevalent for your
everyday life and your everyday
living well we’ve been using Matthew
Chapter 2 chapters one and two really
but chapter two and I want to look at
one verse we talked about the wise men
who who brought content into Christmas
because they came to worship
him and then when they come to where
Jesus
is after they found the way to
go they had seen the Star Verse
n and they came and stood in the place
where the child was remember he’s a
child now by the time they arrive and
coming into the house he’s in the house
he’s not in the
in he’s a toddler now
with Mary uh the
mother it says they fell to the
ground and they worshiped
him how did they worship they fell to
the
ground they bowed
down how do you respond to
Christmas you bow
down you bow down now the Bible is clear
The Ten Commandments makes it clear you
only worship
God you worship God alone and you bring
no other gods before
him
none and yet they fall down and worship
a
baby now a toddler in a house bringing
their gifts to
him but if you only do that for
God by God’s Own
commandment and you worship the son and
God endorses the worship because he
comes and guides
them right after they
worship then Jesus Christ is recognized
as God because God says you can only
worship God that’s
right and they bow down to him they
yield to
him if you really want to get all out of
Christmas that Christmas is designed to
give
you you want to bow down that is submit
your will your life your purposes your
passions all of life is to surround the
worship and the recognition of Jesus
Christ they bowed down and then Heaven
spoke this is more than going to church
this is more than having a service this
is a recognition of his kingship and
lordship why is this important because
the Bible says that there’s only one
mediator between God and man and that is
the man Christ Jesus he’s the mediator
he’s the in between person he’s the link
to bring Heaven and Earth together when
Jesus Christ is excluded the link is
missing and when the link is missing
then there’s a gap Between Heaven and
Earth God wants to close that Gap
through the Bowing down to Jesus
Christ that’s why I love so much
Philippians
2 which brings out this
principle it kind of summarizes
everything we’ve said in these three
sessions thus far and concluding within
this four
session it says have this attitude in
you which was in Christ Jesus so I want
you to think like Jesus
thought who also he existed in the form
of
God he existed in the form of God that
is he was deity you can’t exist in the
form of God unless you are in fact
God but he did not regard equality with
God a thing to be grasp or held on to at
all
cost but emptied
himself taking the form of a bond
servant the Greek word there is duas and
it meant a Slave
and being made in the likeness of men so
he existed as God but he got made in the
likeness of man remember the hyperstatic
union we talked
about being found in the appearance as a
man he humbled himself by becoming
obedient to the point of death even
death on a cross for this reason also
God highly exalted him and bestowed on
him Jesus the
name which is of above every name
remember he’s
Emmanuel so that at the name of
Jesus every knee will
bow that’s what the wise men just did
remember they fell
down of those who are in heaven and on
Earth and under the Earth and that every
tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord
to the glory of God the
Father
wow if you really want to get all out of
Christmas that Christmas has to
offer bow down now you can bow later
mandatorily or you can bow now
voluntarily but all creation will bow
down he says over the Earth on Earth and
under the Earth there will be no one who
does not bow whether in heaven on Earth
or in
hell all creation will be the
recognition of the
son what is Christmas it’s a fresh
opportunity to remind you as you
approach this New Year bow
down recognize his
lordship and confess it the word confess
means to say the same thing it means to
to agree with God on who Jesus is
that’s why even Paul says in Romans
chapter 10 if we confess him we get
delivered by him he’s talking to
Christians there and I know we use that
passage evangelistically but he’s really
talking to Christians about agreeing
with the son Jesus himself said in
Matthew chapter 10 if you confess me
before men I will confess you before my
father If you deny me before men I will
deny you before my father what is he
saying it is the recognition and
agreement with God about me that gains
you attention in heaven it is the denial
or the refusal to confess me that gets
you signed off in heaven it is the
recognition of the
son that means you can’t be a secret
Asian Christian a spiritual CIA
representative or a covert
operative as I like to say everybody
else is coming out the closet so you
might as well come out too and Christmas
is a reminder to come out and be known
as a follower of Christ that I blong to
Jesus Christ and that I bow
down we talked about the inconvenience
of the wise men how they traveled over a
long
distance we are all familiar with
football
fans let’s look at a typical football
day to make my point
there only 17 minutes of action in an
actual football game 17 minutes of
actual physical
contact now all this attention is for 17
minutes of actual
contact now this 17 minutes is part of a
one hour game the game the game clock is
one hour but there’s only 17 minutes of
contact in that one hour some of those
minutes are people huddling or people
going back to the Huddle on a running
play where the clock does not stop so
it’s a 1-hour game that has 170 minutes
of actual
activity but the one-h hour game with
the 70 minutes of activity is part of a
three-hour experience so if you watch
football game you’re gonna be sitting
there for three hours when you look at
the halftime and the timeouts and all of
that you know clock stops on a pass play
in complete pass so now 17 minutes of
action that’s part of a 1H hour game has
now grown into a three-hour
experience if you go to the
game that’s two hours worth of drive
time right from the time you leave your
house deal with the traffic Park and
walk to the stadium that’s so now 17
minutes of action in a 1-h hour game
that’s a three-hour experience is now a
5H hour day but now you got to get back
home right so you got another couple of
hours because you got to walk to the car
right and you got to work work through
the traffic to get home so 70 minutes
worth of action in a 1 hour game that’s
a three-hour experience has now become a
seven-hour day that’s right
interesting when you get
home if you’re a real football fan
that’s right you’re going to watch
sports center or NFL Network absolutely
to show you clips of what you just saw
that’s
right so 17 minutes worth of action in a
1 hour hour game that’s now a 3-hour
experience in a 7h hour day has now been
expanded to
review everything you just
saw on top of all of
that you’re spending your week with
fantasy football if you’re a real
football fan that’s right that’s right
so you’re spending your week waking
making projections on players and games
and all of that all week long in fact
you’re going to even discuss it at work
around the water cooler that’s
right why
because in your mind and heart football
deserves every
week your undivided
attention and you know why it does that
because you’re not merely a fan you’re a
follower what you just entered into was
bowing down to a worship service around
a pig
skin you have adored it worshiped it
cherished it followed it you even paid
your ti when you walked in the stadium I
mean you know you brought your goal and
frankincense and you you PID the
ti because you’ve decided this ball is
worth me bowing down not only for seven
hours that day but it will carry on my
thoughts all week long and and I will
anticipate my next worship service
right well now if you can bow down to PX
skin and you consider it worthy of all
of
that Christmas had should have no
problem getting you undivided attention
and causing you to be like the wise
men you bow
down a man that who died was one day
having an auction of all of his
valuables and he was a very wealthy man
who passed
away and so everyone knew how wealthy
this man was and so because they knew
how wealthy this man was uh they knew
that all of the things he was going to
be auctioning was going to be very
valuable and
expensive so the day of the auction came
and they all
gathered when they all gathered the
auctioner came and he hit the
gavel and he said the auction auction is
now
open the first thing we’re going to
auction is a picture a
painting of this man’s
son so they were going to auction this
picture of this man’s
son and so the portrait came
out and he said who will start the
bidding no one
responded because they were interested
in all the other expensive stuff this
was just a regular painting of a boy
there wasn’t anything special about this
it wasn’t real expensive
stuff he said the floor is open for a
bid no one bid
it he said does not anyone want this
picture of the man’s
son the man had a servant who had worked
for him when he was
alive and the servant seeing that no one
was bidding on the son raised his hand
and said well you know if no one will
else will take it I’ll take
it the servant said I I’ll take the
picture of the
son the auctioneer said well since
nobody’s bidding on the
sun uh we will let the servant take this
picture of the sun
off of the hands of this
auction when the servant came and picked
up the
son the auctioner hit the
gavel and he said the auction is now
over everybody’s looking around what do
you mean the auction is just all over
you just all you did was bring out the
picture of the sun said I know but in
the will of the father all right he
willed that whoever took the picture of
the son got everything
else he wound up with everything simply
because he took the son
cuz with the sun came everything
else there’s a lot of stuff out here for
Christmas being offered you a lot of
it’s expensive valuable it has the glitz
and the glitter of the
holiday but at the name of Jesus every
knee will bow and every tongue will
confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory
of the father so whatever else you’re
looking for in life and in this world
and during this holiday season
take the
sun because whoever gets the sun gets
anything and everything else God has
prescribed for them if they
bow this Christmas bow down and let’s
discover in this new year what the
everything else is that God has for
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[Applause]
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you