Our sermon title this morning is Jesus Moved into the
neighborhood. Often times when people move
into a community, one of the very first questions that comes
up is what kind of neighborhood is that?
What kind of neighborhood is it or what kind of neighbors would
you have? And I'm not saying that's a
totally wrong question. There is a, there's a place in
time when we need to be conscious and aware where we're
moving to have you have kids, small children, what the
environment is. And it's not wrong to be
concerned in some sense. And there are people sometimes
that shouldn't be moving into next door.
That happens, that's true. But there's another side to this
coin and that is the people that are in the neighborhood who's
coming to move in next door to me.
I know there's there are sometimes people who actually
move away from where they live because somebody else moved next
door they can't stand. I'm not saying you've ever done
that, but I remember many years ago we moved into town and and
church. One of the ladies asked you have
good neighbors and I don't know exactly how our conversation
went, but I remember saying something like I think it's just
as important that I think what kind of neighbor will I be to
the neighbors I move to that kind of kind of died there, but
it's important. Our sermon this morning want to
focus on Jesus being born in Bethlehem.
What kind of neighborhood was it that he moved to?
But then more importantly, secondly, want to look at what
kind of neighborhood does Jesus move in today, now here, What
kind of neighborhood has he got in US?
And I know the question doesn't really work because Jesus is not
here in the flesh this morning, as we would say.
And we don't have to worry about somebody named Jesus Christ
who's going to move in next door to me.
But I want to just imagine that for a moment.
Let's say he did, let's say Jesus would be physically
present in our town and he would knock on my door one day, says
Jake, I know, you know, you got a spare bedroom downstairs.
I'm moving in. Uh oh.
Would that impact me in a way that I wouldn't like or would
say, well, I, I, I'm sorry. It's, it's, it's actually, it's
not available. You have a spare couch in your
office. It's a, it's a folder.
I'll sleep on that, but I'm moving in.
Would I like it? Would he be welcome?
I would have all kinds of reasons and excuses and ideas
why it's not a good idea. And hey, we can be good friends,
but just keep our distance because honestly, so many people
who claim to be followers of Jesus, they keep him at a
distance. He's a good friend, saved me
from my sins and all. I go to church on Sunday morning
and say hi and pray and sing, listen and dutifully do my
things. But that's about the extent to
which it goes. And let's say Jesus would come
in and says, by the way, I'm going to come to your work.
I know you drive truck and I'll be riding a shotgun with you.
Or when you make this trip to London, I'll be sitting beside
you. Would that impact how I would
drive or maybe my office work, how I would what I would do on
my computer? Or maybe it's a mother raising
your children and how the children will get treated with
Jesus sitting around, hanging around.
What if Jesus was physically our neighbor?
I know it makes us uncomfortable at some level.
Maybe we'd say I don't want him. He's too intrusive, too
invasive, interrupts my schedule.
There's an old song, an old hymn that illustrates in a very good
way this idea of Jesus being born into our culture and our
time. This.
I'll read the song. Actually, I'll just read it.
It's the title, you know, Well, you've sang it many times and
it's familiar to us. And I'll read it and then I'll
focus in on the last verse. There's, there's 4 verses.
Let me just read it. O little town of Bethlehem, how
still we see the lie above thy deep and dreamless sleep.
The silent stars go by the everlasting light.
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight,
for Christ is born of Mary and gathered all above.
While mortal sleep, the angels keep their watch of wondering
love. O morning stars together
proclaim the holy birth, and praises sing to God the King,
and peace to men on earth. How silently, how silently the
wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of His heaven. No ear may hear His coming, but
in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him, still
the dear Christ enters. In that's neighborhood there's
one more verse and when Jesus is welcomed into our hearts, this
is what it's like. And I want to read this last
verse, verse 4, O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us.
We pray, cast out our sin and enter in, be born in US today we
hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell will
come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel.
This encapsulates the whole story, how Jesus came and He
didn't come loudly, boldly came peacefully, silent, meek and
humble. No noisy fanfare, no allowed
announcement of His arrival. Instead, hope helpless, not
hopeless, helpless and vulnerable as a baby.
No one in the town at that day knew what was happening.
But the greatest miracle to ever happen on planet earth happened
that evening on the on the on the Christmas Eve, Jesus the
Messiah came to live among people, and the little town of
Bethlehem slept right through as if nothing had happened.
And we can't blame them for it, because that's not what God
intended for them to make, to make a loud noise.
But that does not take away from the value of the event or from
its importance. While the town slept, angels
were not sleeping, and they came to the shepherds and presented
them with the good news. And God did not focus on how
loud the gift would come, the celebration that it would have,
and so on. God's focus was to send His Son
as a gift, silently, quietly into this little town.
I want us to pause just for a moment and reflect on this
fourth verse that I have on the slide here where it says be born
in US today. That's a prayer.
That's a request. Imagine Jesus being born into a
human family. He was entering the human race
at the deepest level. We cannot imagine a more
vulnerable, emotionally dependent, physically dependent
state than the state of being born as a helpless newborn.
That's how he came. Yeah, of course, we know the
story. I've talked about it the last
few Sundays. Jesus choosing God, choosing
Mary to be the mother. She was engaged to be married.
That was a big interruption for her.
She wasn't married yet, was going to be.
Now this kind of comes in the way.
And then Joseph, him not being sure what's going on with my
fiance, Mary got to have to divorce her.
And that culture, That's how engagement could be broken.
That's the only way it could be broken.
Huge interruptions, one thing after another.
From a worldly point of view, nobody knew anything.
But in heaven was a big deal for Mary, it was a big deal for
Joseph, it was a big deal. It was a big deal for the
angels. It was a big deal for Jesus.
But Jerusalem, the capital, the news didn't even reach it until
much later, when the wise men from the east would come and
they would ask, where's this king of the Jews that's supposed
to be born? What king of the Jews?
He calls this Pharisees over anything about the king of the
Jews to be born? Oh yeah, And Bethlehem and
Judea, there's a son of David will be born there.
And then he says to the wise man, go and check it out and
then tell me and then let me know and I'll come worship too.
Meantime, he wanted to kill them, kill him.
And he did kill the boys because he got awaited.
Any one of us here, all of us here have been born into a
family to someone we call father, mother, sister, brother
and so on. Jesus choose to become part of
that. Now imagine if God would tap you
or me on the shoulder one day and say something like, OK, I'm
sending you to become part of a family and such and such a place
that needs help and your responsibility.
And your task is to love that family as you love yourself and
and care and teach and train. And then in the end, most of
them will turn against you and they will kill you, but I will
raise you back to life. Now I know I'm just making
things up here, but this is an essence.
What would we would go through? We would bristle, we say, Oh no,
I don't want to. Now, of course, God will never
do that because we're not Jesus. But nevertheless, when he left
this earth to bring the gospel here and start as a baby, that
was a huge deal. God has done big things before.
It wasn't just Jesus that that was the biggest thing he ever
did. But even in history and the Old
Testament, the greatest character we have is Moses, and
we know Jesus. Moses talked in the Mount of
Transfiguration, and so they had something together.
But think of him as a as a man. He would have never guessed at
age 80 that the greatest task of his life was before him.
You see, that's the thing. When people get close to God,
all of a sudden things start happening in their lives they
had never imagined, never dreamed.
That's what happened to Zechariah in a small way, to
Mary in a small way, and to Joseph.
And no, God's not asking us to be any of one of those
characters, but he's asking us, you and I, today to welcome him,
walk with him, be his witness, allow Him to lead us so that
other people will see, take note, and they too will want to
follow Jesus. In essence, that's what it's
coming down to in John chapter one, verse 14.
See if this slide works. It does work.
The Word became flesh, flesh and blood and moved into the
neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own
eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like son, generous
inside and out. True from start to finish.
That's Eugene Peterson's translation paraphrase, but I
like the way he says it in simple English.
The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.
You see, God has always wanted to be part of humanity in the
Garden of Eden. He wanted to be part of Adam and
Eve's relationship there. And he was until they sinned,
and then that was it. Then that was over.
They had to get kicked out of the garden.
And the whole Old Testament was a journey back to that.
And John the Apostle says God moved into the neighborhood.
He's still busy moving into the neighborhood.
The question we want to ask ourselves is, is this
neighborhood accepting? Am I accepting him?
Am I embracing the story? Am I embracing him as a as a
welcome master, Lord and Savior? Well, let's look at the story a
little bit. Go to Luke chapter 2 beginning
verse one. Luke chapter 2 beginning verse
one. I want you to read along with me
and you have your phones or your devices, whatever you can follow
there. It says in verse 2, And it came
to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar
Augustus that all the world should be registered.
The census first took place while Carinius was governing
Syria. So all went to be registered,
everyone to his own city. This was not a time of peace in
the sense that there were no problems.
Yes, the Roman Empire had expanded worldwide.
Things were happening and here's a bit of a picture of what it
may have looked like, and that's the picture of Southern Europe,
Western Europe, and North Africa.
Rome basically had all of this in its grasp.
Caesar Augustus ruled this whole empire, the dark Reds where
Italy is, and that's Rome, but all the rest of it.
And if you see to your to your right, that little red piece
there, that's Palestine, and that's where in that little
country, that's where Jesus was born.
Everybody in his empire had to now go and get registered.
And he wanted to know how many people he had.
And rulers like Caesar and governments do this for various
reasons. But one thing that Cesar
Augustus wanted to know is how many people do I have?
And for the purpose of how much taxes can I take?
And maybe how strong am I militarily and what can I all do
with what I have? And she was very, very rich,
very, very powerful, ruled with an iron fist, so to speak.
Now the Jews had the freedom of religion, so to speak.
They could worship Yahweh, Jehovah God, as long as their
religion did not counter or fight against Rome.
And so they had a very delicate dance there, but it worked.
And so here everybody has to go to their hometown to get
registered and it's for the purpose of political gain and
never thinking that this would play right into what God had
planned that he would bring the Messiah into the world through
this through this event. God had prophesied in Micah
chapter 2 five verse 2, the words but you Bethlehem Ephrata,
though you're little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of
you shall come forth to me the one to to be the ruler in Israel
whose goings forth or from of old from everlasting.
This is old prophecy in this event, this registry that was
destined to happen, it was ordered by Caesar Augustus, and
that would put Mary and Joseph right where God wanted them for
the birth to happen. So let's continue reading
chapter 2, verse 47. 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 to be registered with Mary, his
betrothed wife, who was with child.
So it was that while they were there, the days were
accomplished, completed for her to be delivered, and she brought
forth her first born son and wrapped him in swaddling
clothes, laid him in a Manger, because there was no room for
them. In the end, while Caesar's
focused on power and control and domination and wealth and so on,
God's focused on arranging for the arrival of His son to bring
his Kingdom into this world. Everything about this was
unsuitable. I mean, Mary's pregnant, going
on nine months now to the end of nine months, pretty much not a
good time to travel, by the way, from Nazareth to Jerusalem to
Bethlehem. We don't have exact information,
but as I mentioned in my last few sermons, this distance to
would have been days of travel. She didn't have coach or a nice
vehicle or anything like that in the last days of her pregnancy.
Pregnant women don't walk too fast.
You know, maybe she rode on a donkey, let's say that benefit
of the doubt there, but we don't know that.
Maybe they had a group of people going not there.
Maybe we're not alone. We don't know.
But anyway, this was not an easy trip.
This is not an easy walk. If it was a walk in her physical
state would have been a slow and lengthy journey.
Then they get to Bethlehem and they're kind of everything, just
snowballs. Just think the town is crowded.
The census has caused a lot of people to go to Bethlehem for
the same purpose, to register, to please Caesar Augustus.
And a lot of people are there, and it's a town.
People are maybe milling about, but all there for the same
reason. It makes you wonder, why would
God do that? Could he have not ordained it?
So they went a little earlier, maybe in a month or two earlier,
and so that this could all be taken care of and maybe they had
a there would have been room, maybe rent a house by that time.
God has strange ways of doing things, often uncomfortable,
inconvenient, and disruptive. And it seems as if it doesn't
matter a whole lot to me. I'm not saying it doesn't.
I'm just saying he's using that. So they need a place to sleep
and there's no room in the end. Duh.
What do you do if there's a big sport event in some town, you
want to rent a motel there? You can't because it's all
booked. And that's the case here.
Registration is going on. No room in the end, no place to
sleep. Oh, yeah, There's one place.
There's one place to sleep. That barn or that stable, that
part of the house where the animals are kept.
There's a there's a there's a, there's some room there and it's
time for her to give birth. What to do?
There's no hospital to go to. They don't have those in those
days. And so she had gives birth to
this baby, this little tiny baby, wraps him up and puts him
in the feeding through not a lot to give.
And there in that through maybe a stone through as commentators
suggested, might have been where the animals eat their feed their
hay or whatever they had. That's where he's put.
If God would send you and me an omission, what kind of
conditions would we set? A long checklist?
OK, we're going to go if and we're going to go when, and
we're going to only if we have a long checklist of conditions
that have all lined up ducks in a row.
And then maybe we'll think about it and pray about it, and then
we might, we might say, yes. Is that how we do things?
I'm afraid so. Often times that's the reality.
Better timing. Once this happens, once that
happens, we would have thresholds which God would have
to meet for us to obey. Jesus came into a world,
difficult world in a very simple way.
He came as Lord, yes, but in the most humble of circumstances.
He came into the neighbor. He wasn't choosy or selective as
we might be. And God ordained that he would
be born to the simple couple, nothing to offer except
themselves. And I want to say it's safe to
say that Mary, the young mother of Jesus, experienced all the
things that young mothers go through who expect the baby and
the traveling, the stress that caused.
She must have been exhausted, bone tired.
And of the different things we need to learn about Jesus, we
need to be mindful. He doesn't come at our
convenience. Either it's at his call or no
enough at all. If we set the bar, if we set the
conditions, he ain't coming. He's not welcome when it suits
us. He comes when he sees.
We need growth. We need lessons and trust,
lessons and patience. Lessons in humility, lessons in
surrender. And so on.
And as glorious and grand as that event was for the world was
just not even, didn't even exist because the world didn't know.
No local news going on, reporters and TV crews
televising what's going on in Bethlehem.
Those things didn't exist in those days, but it did get
spread. Not in the normal way, however.
Let's continue reading now. There were in the same country,
shepherds living out in the fields.
That's not the people you go to share stories with, because
there's the most unreliable people.
They had keeping watch over their flock by night.
And behold, an Angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory
of the Lord shun around them, and they were greatly afraid.
Then the Angel said to them, do not be afraid.
For behold, I bring you good news, good tidings of great joy,
which will be to all people. For there's born to you this day
in the city of David a Savior who's Christ the Lord, and this
will be the sign to you. You'll find a babe wrapped in
swaddling clothes lying in a Manger.
God wants his news to spread, just not in the way the world
would normally do it. He sent his Angel to some
shepherds who were watching over their flocks.
By night, maybe these shepherds were sitting around a fire.
Maybe they were standing. But anyway, I would assume they
would have had a fire to keep warm during the long hours of
the night, watching the sheep, making sure that no predators
would would get close. And as they had been out in the
field watching many countless nights before and would continue
again doing so countless nights into the future, something
happened that night, totally unexpected.
They're totally not prepared. A bright light comes, an Angel
of God is there, and of course they're afraid we would be too.
Now again, notice that for the shepherds this was a surprise
and not exactly the best time in the 24 hour day to bring good
news. Wouldn't there be a better time
then at night time? I mean, maybe after breakfast
everybody's kind of rested up a little bit ready to go for the
day. Maybe an announcement, some good
news is coming. But think from it about it from
a human perspective. If God had sent notice and said
that He would send an Angel to bring them some good news and
wanted them to set a time, when could I come?
We don't know how it would have turned out, made made any
difference. We don't know that.
But God comes on His timing, not on ours.
It almost seems as if God has no regard for human schedules.
Not with Zechariah, didn't with Moses in the Old Testament, not
with Moses, not with Zechariah, not with Mary, not with the
shepherds. He does things when He wants to
do them. The people He includes in His
plans, they just go along and they get their lives rearranged,
readjusted and turned upside down.
God doesn't call meetings with the people He chooses to carry
out His mission with to see when it works, when we when would we
be ready? He just takes over.
And the people He chooses, they get to go for the ride.
Now here with the shepherds, the news is great.
Well, the timing is strange, but the news is great.
And here's the something we want to focus in on a little bit.
He says do not be afraid for behold, I bring you good tidings
of great joy, which will be to all people.
For there's born to this day in the city of David a Savior who's
Christ the Lord. This will be the sign to you.
You'll find a babe wrapped in swabbing clothes lying in a
Manger. The city of David was the place
where the Messiah had been prophesied would be born.
And they were waiting for one. All the Jews were.
But now it had happened, and the most unlikely people to get the
good news first were the shepherds.
Not the priests, not the rulers or the elders of the nation.
Simple shepherds. The Jews had big expectations of
what would happen when the Messiah would come.
To them. That meant freedom from Rome.
No more taxes, independence, no more senses, no more registries,
nothing. Just peace and independence from
the control of Rome. Jesus did not come for what they
expected him to come. They expected a physical,
financial, economic freedom. That was not Jesus priority.
His prayer was spiritual freedom and relationship with him free
from sin and and bondage to sin. And the Angel gave the shepherd
the instructions on where to find the baby.
Go to Bethlehem, you find the baby wrapped in swaddling
clothes and lying in a Manger. That's his residence, a borrowed
feed through. And thinking about this, one
cannot help but ponder and think of how little value, how little
earthly value, God places on earthly stuff.
Earthly recognition, earthly power, everything he lines up to
serve His purpose. It doesn't mean that God's not
interested in celebrating earthly things.
When people have joy and gladness of heart, that's fine,
that's good, but it needs to align with God.
God made a big deal out of this. Continue reading verse 13.
It says, and suddenly there was with the Angel, a multitude of
the heavenly host praising God and saying glory to God in the
highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men.
God was very invested, very involved.
I do wonder sometimes what must this have sounded like?
We love good music. I love good music, and we have
people who do great job. Our worship team and others do
very good work. I love listening to good music
online, but I think that must have sounded unique.
Glory to God in the highest and on earth.
Peace, goodwill toward men. That's the message God gave
them. It was for the shepherds, yes,
but also for everybody else. Let's continue reading verse 15.
So it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven
that the shepherds said to one another, Let us now go to
Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the
Lord has made known to us. And they came with haste, and
found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a Manger.
Now when they had seen him, they made widely known the saying
which was told and concerning this child and all those who
heard it marvel at those things which were told them by the
shepherds. But Mary kept all these things
and ponder them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned
glorifying and praising God for all the things that heard and
seen as it was told them. So in the night the shepherds
hurry off to this town of Bethlehem define the story is
true. There's a newborn baby in a
feeding through in a Manger, and that's the Messiah.
And so they share this good news.
Simple guys that they were, and as surprising it was to them,
surprising it was to everybody else.
But it didn't reach Jerusalem for as far as we know.
You see, that is not the finish line.
That is not work. Begin, it stands, That is the
starting line. While Jesus had moved into the
neighborhood, he would grow up and 33 years later or so, he
would end up being nailed to a Roman cross.
He would die by crucifixion. But that was still several
decades in the future. But for now, the young couple,
Joseph and Mary, had the privilege and the
responsibility, the opportunity of being mom and dad to the
Christ child. And it wouldn't be easy.
You know the story. They had to flee to Egypt in a
very short while. Well, maybe we would say, well,
we could never do what Joseph and Mary did.
And that's true. We're not called to that, but
the mission for which Jesus came was to give us what we could not
achieve ourselves to take from us what we could not get rid of
ourselves, Jesus came to take on himself.
Our sins is the Lamb of God, and following that he came to give
us his righteousness. When Jesus moved into the
neighborhood, he came to give us the righteous, the righteousness
that we could not attain to free us from their sin, that we could
not get free from by ourselves. Jesus moved into the
neighborhood to give Himself to us.
There never was a better offer than that offer, and it still
stands today. Some people get it, some don't.
We're not questioning whether or not Jesus lives today in our
neighborhood. We know from his teachings he is
here today. We know.
We do not know how He will meet us, we just know He does.
He presents Himself to us in the opportunities we have.
Jesus, the Creator of time and space and matter, entered his
creation, became part of what he had created.
He became the image he had created and entered this world
as the most dependent, defenses, helpless, frail human being
imaginable. A baby.
He's among us as one who came to give Himself and someone whom we
need to give ourselves to. I was reading a sermon recently
by someone that I love to read sometimes and he wrote something
about Christmas. And as I was preparing the
sermon for Christmas Day and going over what the sermon wrote
about, it's not mine. If somebody else wrote it and I
want to read a paragraph of his writing and this is what he
says, I'll read a few paragraphs, is those who believe
in God, once they've seen him in a stable, they can never be sure
where he will appear, or to what lengths he will go, or to what
ludicrous depths of self humiliation he will descend in
his wild pursuit of humankind. If holiness and the awful power
and majesty of God were present, and this least suspicious of all
events, this birth of a peasant's child, then there's no
place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can
be present there too. And this means that if we try to
hide, we're never safe. There's no place where we can
hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break
in pieces and recreate the human heart, because it is just where
He seems most helpless, that he's most strong, and just where
we least expect Him, that He comes most fully.
You see, friends, that's what happened in Bethlehem that night
when he came into the neighborhood of Bethlehem.
We know Herod tried to kill him. God rescued him, and he escaped.
But many people did die. Many babies did die because of
this evil king. See, that's how God comes, not
with an army, not with defenses, humble, surrendered, and
vulnerable. And that's where the strength
and the power lies. He comes to us in the same terms
that he expects us to meet him in humble, vulnerable and
surrendered, embracing our struggles.
Let me read him one more paragraph.
He, this writer says for those who believe in God, it means
this birth that God himself is never safe from us.
He comes in such a way that we can always turn him down as we
would crack the baby skull like an eggshell.
Think abortion or nail him up on the cross when he gets too big
for that. Think of crime and injustice.
God comes to us and the hungry people we do not have to feed.
He comes to us and the lonely people we don't have to comfort.
He comes to us and all the desperate human need of people
everywhere that we are always free to turn our backs upon.
It means that God puts Himself at our mercy, not only in the
sense of the suffering that we can cause him by our blindness
and coldness and cruelty, but by the suffering that we can cause
him simply by suffering ourselves, Because that's the
way love works. And when someone we love
suffers, we suffer with him. And we wouldn't have it
otherwise, because the suffering, the love, are one,
just as it is with God's love for us.
The end of that paragraph. Where there's suffering, Jesus
suffers too. Where there's pain, Jesus
experiences too. The pain of his earth is our
pain too, as our pain in this world has pain too.
To Jesus entered a neighborhood of suffering.
That's this world. He's joined us in our suffering.
He's sharing us in our suffering.
He invites us to join him and he wants us to invite Him.
We we have to ask, do we want to be his neighbor?
Do we want him as our neighbor? Jesus teaches.
Without him we don't have eternal life as a man.
He became one of us. He's the one in whom and through
whom we have our future destiny. Whether he comes in the form of
a newborn, the form of a sick person, the form of a lonely
person, whatever it may be, when we have opportunity, we have
opportunity to be a neighbor to him, and he wants to be neighbor
to us. Today is Christmas and he's
moved into the neighborhood. He wants us to receive the gift.
He brings hope and peace and joy and all of that as we surrender
ourselves to Him and lay down our agendas and take His agenda
for our lives. As I've often said and say we'll
say it as many times as I can, He wants a relationship.
That's it. He came to connect with us, to
bring Him some self. No greater gift than that.
But to do justice to this, that's what it requires
ourselves. He came and moved into the
neighborhood. So how is it between me and
Jesus? Between you and Jesus?
Are you the neighbor whom Jesus will find warm and welcoming
with humility and commitment? Can we give ourselves to him the
way he gave himself to US? Open and humble, independent.
The way he gave Himself is the way we need to give ourselves.
He's asking for it all. He gave it all.
He's asking for it all. He wants to be our neighbor.
Today we have that opportunity. So I will encourage us.
Let's give ourselves to Jesus. Invite him in.
Let's spread the good news of what Jesus has done by how we
embrace, encourage, and live among our neighbors and our body
of faith and our community. Let us pray.
Thank you, Lord, for the words of Scripture.
May our hearts be today in tune with you.
We pray that as your people, we will be an extension of your
love and compassion toward the hurting world.
Thank you, Lord, for the work you did for us.
Help us to enjoy, to embrace, and to celebrate the gift this
Christmas season. You've done so much for us.
Lord. May we serve you faithfully and
joining me pray. Amen.