To all of you joining at all of our different locations, to
those of you watching online and inside, from our family to
yours, Merry Christmas. I also want to wish a very
special Merry Christmas to our newest location launching right
now in Weaver, Iowa. I'm getting reports that it is
standing room only in that place right now.
To those of you in Weaver, we have been praying for you.
We have been rooting for you. And we are in your corner as you
try to make that region the hardest place on planet Earth to
get the hell from. And we are so glad to have you a
part of this community of believers.
They are some of the very best people on planet Earth.
Now, when it comes to Christmas, I believe that all people fall
into one of three categories, and I'm going to have you
identify which category you are in before I tell you whether or
not you are wrong. No lying if you are the first
group of people are the people who they decorate their house
for Christmas. They decorate the outside, they
decorate the inside. They go way beyond a tree with
some lights and some ornaments. They have some totes in their
house that they pack up all their Christmas stuff.
And if you are a Christmas decorator at all of our
locations, would you put your hand up so we can see you?
God bless you. We're so thankful for you.
If it wasn't for you, those of us in Group number two would not
have as great of a Christmas. Group 2 are the people who we
just put up a tree and some ornaments and a couple lights on
the tree, but we don't do anything with the house.
We just drive around and admire your handiwork.
How many of you are in Group number two?
God bless you. These are my people on my
neighborhood. I, my house is the one that is
the least decorated. Now there is group #3 these are
the people who decorate their house for Christmas, and then
they drive around and judge all the other houses where those
bold people at. You guys are liars.
OK, now to those of you in Group number two, it's Christmas.
And when it's Christmas, it's customary for there to be an
exchange of gifts. And I came today bearing gifts
to those of you who are in Group number two, or for those of you
who are in Group number one who want to save yourself some time
next year. There are a couple ideas that
I've curated over the years that I think might be advantageous
for you as you plan your 2025 Christmas.
Here is solution number one. To those of you who live next to
somebody who goes all out, all you have to do to decorate is
just put a little Ditto sign with an arrow pointing to your
obnoxious neighbour. The best part of this is you can
do this for like 150 bucks at Home Depot and your house on the
neighbourhood will be the house that everybody else talks about.
So that neighbour who's going above and beyond is just going
to get made fun of by everybody else on the neighbourhood.
This is a Gold Star move if you want to take it.
Now, for those of you who are going, I want a little bit more
of a festive arc to my creative decorating for Christmas.
I've got a solution for you. Check out this guy.
This person's a pure genius. Here's what you have to do.
You just have to get yourself a Grinch sign hanging out there.
Hang some lights, make it look like the Grinch is in fact,
stealing Christmas. And people are going to be like,
you're so witty, you're so clever.
I don't know why I didn't think of this.
Now, here's a couple failures that this guy made.
He put some of the lights on the roof, which means he had to get
a ladder out. This is not, We don't want to
decorate with ladders. Here's what he should have done.
He should have gone to Home Depot or Lowe's or Menards or
wherever it is that you guys go, and he should have just got the
lights, didn't even unwrap them out-of-the-box.
Just pull the box off, plug them in and just Chuck them over the
bushes and you're done. 30 seconds and you're the talk of
the neighborhood. However, one of my all time
favorite decoration stories when it comes to getting your house
ready for Christmas comes from an Austin family.
In 2018, they lived in Austin, TX and they decided that they
wanted to win their neighborhood Christmas decorating contest and
they went all out. They took a page out of National
Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. You know, where Clark Griswold
is clinging to the gutter on the second floor of his home after
he's been putting the lights all over the roof.
And this is what they created. This is a top tier job.
In fact, they did such a good job that a man was walking by
while everybody was at work and he saw the dummy hanging from
the roof and he ran to help. He tries to start moving the
ladder to get the guy to get the ladder in place, but the ladder
is he's having a difficult time with it.
He's screaming and shouting at the dummy hanging from the roof
and getting no reply. So he pulls out his phone.
He calls 911 and they start sending help to this house.
While he's on the phone with with 911, he goes out into the
street and starts stopping traffic to get people and help
him on his rescue mission. All of this is caught on their
Ring doorbell, and so they can see this entire rescue effort
going for this guy who appears to just be barely hanging on.
I don't know what's been going on in your life over the past
year, the past month, or maybe even the last week.
But I'm willing to wager that in a couple areas of your life, if
you were to be honest, you have a lot in common with Clark
Griswold. You're just barely hanging on.
You've been trying to do life right, and it just doesn't seem
to be going your way. And if you were to describe
yourself today as you sit here listening to my voice, you would
say, Clayton, I'm just hanging on.
Maybe for some of you, it's at work.
You have the best of intentions at work.
And if you're being honest, though, the way work has kind of
been going, you're just hanging on.
Maybe some of you are, you have the best of goals when it came
to your finances, but the way things have kind of worked
themselves out as the year progressed, if you were to
describe yourself financially right now, you'd go, I'm just,
I'm just kind of hanging on. For some of you, it might be
cutting a little bit deeper than that.
You have the highest of hopes for your marriage.
But if you were to be honest about what's going on in your
marriage right now, either you would say or you're pretty sure
your spouse would say, we're just barely hanging on some of
you. You had the highest of dreams
when it came to your kids and your parenting, but based off
the way things have been going recently, you're going when it
comes to my relationship with my kids or my kids relationship
with God, I feel like I'm just barely hanging on.
For some of you, it might be when it comes to your health,
you've had all the right disciplines.
You've been doing the right things and eating the right
things. But the recent test results came
back. And if you had to describe your
health right now, you would say, well, the tests say that I'm
just barely hanging on. Some of you, you remember having
deep, rich, abundant relationships.
But over time, things are fading relationally.
Isolation is setting in. And if you were to describe
yourself relationally right now, you would say, Clayton, I'm, I'm
barely hanging on. And the sad truth is that the
longer you hang on, the more weary you become.
I don't have to prove it to you. You guys already know this.
There is no hiding the fact that behind all the Christmas lights
and Christmas carols and Christmas cards arriving at your
house and behind all the presents underneath the tree, we
are a weary people living in a weary world.
Maybe that is what was in the mind of a French wine
distributor outside of Paris by the name of Placid when he wrote
a poem called Cantique de Noel in 1847.
The poem was eventually turned into a song that would captivate
a country, bring peace for a night in the middle of a war, be
banned by the French Catholic Church, become a rally cry for
the North in the middle of the Civil war, and eventually become
a favorite at Christmas Eve services all around the globe.
The song? Well, you already know it.
It is Oh holy night. And the first verse goes like
this. O holy night, the stars are
brightly shining. It is the night of our dear
Savior's birth. Long lay the world in sin and
error, pining till he appeared, and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope. The weary world rejoices, For
Yonder breaks a new and glorious mourn.
Fall on your knees, O hear the Angel voices, O night divine.
O night when Christ was born, O night, O holy night, O night
divine. It took me days to write this
message. Even though I don't know all of
you in an inexplicable way, I love you deeply.
I care about your hurts and your hang ups, your questions, your
doubts, your struggles, your pain.
I care about your marriages and your parenting and your friends
who don't know Jesus. And I know that there are some
of you listening to my voice right now and you are already
looking at the clock on your phone going when is this going
to be over? But I know that there are others
of you in here who are in need of something, anything, in a
desperate kind of way. Plus, he wrote this poem that
became a song as he was reading Luke chapter 2, which describes
the birth of Jesus. And no wonder he begins by
calling it a holy night because this was no ordinary night.
Something special, something extraordinary, something
different, something special, something divine, something holy
about that night. You see, for far too long the
world has been and the world was wrapped in sin and error.
And we see that everywhere we look.
We see the pain and the chaos caused by sin, and we see it the
easiest in others. It's so easy to point out the
failures and the shortcomings in our politicians, in our bosses,
in our spouse, in our kids, in our friends.
However, the more mature of us realize our own failures, our
own shortcomings, our own sins and the pain that it causes.
Maybe that is why Placid uses the word pining.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
It carries with this this connotation of a deep physical
and mental decline because of a broken heart.
He sees no more than that. He feels the mental and physical
decline because he has a broken heart.
And maybe, maybe you do too. Then in one line, the poem,
which would become a song, takes flight from the lowest of lows
to the highest of highs. Till he appeared and the soul
felt It's worth. There are a lot of places for
you and I to find our worth. Some of us, we find our worth in
our job. The joy of the promotion,
finally getting the job we've been working our whole life to
get. And we find our worth increases,
Our responsibilities increase. But what happens when you no
longer have the job? What happens when you lose the
job? What happens to your worth then?
If your worth is in your job? Some of us, we find it in our
money. We find our worth is tied to how
much we make. And we enjoy the cars and the
houses and the vacations and the clothes and the freedom and the
margin. But what happens to your hope?
What happens to your worth when you don't make what you used to
make and you can't do what you used to do and you can't afford
what you used to be able to afford?
And if your if your worth is tied to what you make, what
happens when you don't make it anymore?
Some of us, we find our worth in our marriage.
We finally got somebody to agree to spend the rest of their life
with us. You got somebody to look at you
and say, till death does US part.
And then many years later, you find out that the math that they
were using was different than the math that you were using.
And if your worth is tied to your marital status, what
happens when you no longer have marital status?
Some of us, we find it in our health, but what happens when
our bodies begin to fail us? If your worth is tied to your
health, what happens when you get the diagnosis?
Maybe for some of us, it isn't our health that we're concerned
about, but we are definitely concerned about our looks.
And right now, I'm going to speak especially to those of you
in your 20s and 30s Enjoy it. You guys look great.
We're super happy for you. But I want you to know what day
is coming, where there's going to be a line item for makeup in
your budget, and the clothes that you like right now from the
place where you like to get them will stop carrying your size.
You're going to have to find another store like a farm and
home. Hi, I hope Carhartt makes these.
What happens when gravity begins to win?
All of a sudden you look in the mirror and what is looking at
you in the mirror doesn't look like what it used to look like.
The mirror hasn't changed. You have, and if your worth was
tied in how you looked, what happens to your worth when your
looks change? Some of us, we find it in our
athletic achievements. But I got to be honest with you,
I don't see a lot of 40 year old men going into work wearing
their letterman's jacket anymore.
I was talking to AD 1 football player who played a full with
played fullback and he had spent his entire life excelling at
football and it had led him to the D1 stage.
It was there that he had scholarships and he got
preferential treatment when he walked into the training room
and people wanted to talk to him when he was on his way to
classes and schools want to invite him in so kids could get
something autographed by him. But then in the senior year, he
suffers a career ending injury and he came into my office and
he was talking to me because he didn't know what to do.
For his entire life he had introduced himself with his name
and then he would talk about him being a football player and he
had never introduced himself without the next sentence.
And he was trying to figure out what to do with his worth
because his worth had been tied up in football and football was
no longer a part of his life. Some of you are listening right
now and you're going, Hey, Clayton, real quick, This is
Christmas Eve and we came here for a good pick me up.
We want to smile. We kind of want to get out of
here. And right now, all you've
successfully done is made us very frustrated and depressed.
Good. I wanted every single person in
here good and lost with the hopes that some of you might be
saved. I am so I'm glad that you are
here today because I want you to know this.
Your worth is not found in the things of this world.
Your worth is found in the fact that God came down.
And when you realize that God came down for you, you will
finally realize your worth. Till he appeared, and the soul
felt it's worth. Little Johnny was in Sunday
school class and he was learning about the Bible as you do in
Sunday school class, and the teacher was taking them through
the creation narrative. And so he heard the teacher talk
about how God spoken to the expanse.
And all of a sudden there were Suns and moons and stars and
galaxies, and God continued to speak.
And there was water and there was land, and there were birds
and there were fish and there were animals.
And then God went about making man, and he spooled the dust
together and breathed into his nostrils, and Adam became a
living being. And then God went to make Eve
Adam's wife, and he pulled one of the ribs that he had given
Adam, and out of that rib he made woman.
And Johnny, like most young boys, wasn't paying that much
attention. But he was paying enough
attention that day that later on in the week, his mom came into
the living room and saw Johnny laying on the floor clutching
his side. She could tell that he wasn't
feeling well. And she goes, Johnny, what's
wrong? He goes, mom, I got a pain in my
side. I think I'm going to have a
wife. You know what I love about that
story? It's because Johnny believed
God. And I want you to know Johnny's
not the only person who believes that God is who he says he is
and will do what he says he will do and has done what he has done
on our behalf. I believe it too.
That's why when it says in John chapter 3 verse 16, which many
of you know these words, for God so loved the world that he gave
his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall
not perish but have eternal life.
You need to know that when the Bible says it, I believe it.
I believe that God loves you and that your worth can be found in
him. And I know that there are some
of you right now who are going whoever.
You can't possibly mean whoever. Clayton Oh, yes, I do.
I believe that whoever believes in Jesus can be saved.
Why? I'll tell you why.
Because God said it, Jesus showed it, the Holy Spirit
sealed it, the apostles preached it, and I've seen it.
So can I talk to for just a second to all the whoever's that
are listening to my voice, to the whoever's who have ever told
a lie, and to the whoever's are living a lie.
If you believe in Jesus, you can be saved.
Your worth can be found in him that God came down on your
behalf. To the whoever's that are
listening to my voice right now that have been divorced, going
through a divorce or contemplating one.
To the whoever's out there. If you believe in Jesus, you can
be saved. To those of you who have
whoever's been a bully and to whoever has been bullied.
To the whoever's. To the whoever's who have been
abused. To whoever's are being abused
and to the whoever's who are being the abuser, God sent His
son down so that you and I could find our worth and our hope in
him. To the whoever's that are
listening to my voice right now. To whoever has been addicted, is
still battling their addiction, or is in denial about their
addiction. To the whoever's.
I came today to preach a very simple message to the whoever's.
To the whoever's who have had it all and lost it, and to the
whoever's who have never had anything to lose.
To the whoever's who have had nasty things said about you
online and you think that your value is based on what other
people have said about you. I'm here today to tell you that
your value is not found and what others people say about you but
about what God said about you when he sent his son.
And I also came to deliver a message to the whoever's are the
ones that say the nasty things. Your sin does not have to define
you. Jesus death on the cross can
define you and you can be made right and righteous in him.
I came to preach a message to the whoever's.
To the whoever's that are struggling with faith and doubt.
To the whoever's who have more questions than they have
answers. To those of you.
To the whoever's that are navigating depression and
anxiety and fear and isolation. To the whoever's that are mad at
God don't believe in him. To the whoever's who don't want
anything to do with him. To the whoever's who have been
running from God. I came to talk to the whoever's,
to the whoever's who have been hurt, still hurting, and to the
whoever's who caused the hurt. To those of you that are in
pain, and to those of you who caused it, God ripped open
heaven and sent his Son so that you could know your worth and
experience his love. No wonder the very next line.
And the song says, the thrill of hope.
The weary world rejoices. For Yonder breaks a new and
glorious mourn, because our worth is found in Him.
Why is this weary world rejoicing?
Why are we experiencing this new and glorious mourn?
Because on that night, that holy night, that divine night, the
thing that you and I and desperately needed came, A
Savior was born. And he is Christ the King.
And because our worth is found in him, the God who knows
everything about us, all of our secrets, all of our sins,
knowing everything that is wrong about us, knowing everything
that would make other people run from us, our worth is found that
God saw it and sent the answer to it and his Son, Jesus Christ.
And this new and glorious mourn exists because hope has entered
the world in 19 O 6. Reginald Fessenden was a 33 year
old university professor in Pittsburgh.
He was also the former chief chemist for Thomas Edison.
And on a Christmas Eve night, he did something long thought
impossible because of the utilization of a new generator.
Fessenden spoke into a microphone, and for the very
first time in all of human history, a man's voice was
broadcast over the airwaves. These are the words that he
said. And it came to pass in those
days that Cesar Augustus issued a decree.
He began in a clear, strong voice, hoping that it would
carry the necessary distance for other people to hear.
Shocked radio operators on ships astonished wireless owners at
home. Newspaper set slack jawed as all
of a sudden the coded impulses of dot dot dot dot dot dot dot
dot dot were interrupted by a man reading from the Gospel of
Luke and to those who caught the broadcast it must have seemed
like a Christmas miracle, hearing a voice somehow turned
into electrical waves and transmitted far away.
Fessenden was probably unaware of the chaos that he was causing
and the sensation that was happening to all of those who
are listening. Ships at sail on a dark night.
Offices. He couldn't have known that
women were rushing around their house trying to figure out where
the voice was coming from. After he finished his recitation
of the birth of Christ, he picked up his violin and he
played a song. And the song that he played, the
very first song that was broadcast over the radio.
Well, you know that song it is. Oh, holy night, I'm no idiot.
I know that there are some of you that are here today because
this is your church. I know that others of you are
here today because this is just how you celebrate Christmas.
You find a church and you go there for Christmas Eve.
I also know that there are some of you that are here simply
because your mom or your grandma asked you to and you just didn't
want to get into a fight before they got around to giving you
presents and this was like an insurance bet for you.
And we're so glad you're here. I also know that there are some
of you in here today because someone deeply loves you.
They've been praying for you. They invited you because they
see you and they know you're just barely hanging on.
And my biggest fear is that this could just be another Christmas
message and that all you've heard so far was dot dot dot dot
dot dot dot dot. But I have been praying for this
moment right here, that you would not hear my voice, but you
would finally hear His voice so that your worth could be found
in Him. That you could experience the
thrill of hope. That your weary world could
begin to rejoice because God loves you, sent His Son to die
on the cross for you so that you could begin an intimate,
personal relationship with Him. And I hope you'll do that.
We're moving to a time of decision.
To those of you that are in this room and to those of you who are
watching online who you don't yet have, what we would describe
an intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
I feel compelled to make you aware of two things.
When it comes to my intimate personal relationship with Jesus
Christ. I can tell you this.
It is the single greatest decision that I've ever made.
And I would also tell you that my biggest regret is that I
didn't do it sooner. And you might be thinking, of
course, Clayton, you're the preacher at the church.
Of course, that's your story. But your story isn't my story.
But you don't have to take my word for it.
I want you to take the word of the testimony of the people
around you. So can I ask a question?
And if you agree, would you raise your hand to those of you
in here who would say that the single greatest decision that
you ever made was making Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior,
and stepping into an intimate personal relationship with Him?
Would you raise your hand? You don't have to just believe
me. You can believe them.
And would you also say that the biggest regret that you have is
that you didn't start that relationship with Him sooner?
Would you raise your hand? Listen, you don't have to listen
to me. You can listen to them.
You might be going with Clayton. I have a pass.
So do they. So do I.
I've made some pretty bad mistakes.
You don't know the stories of all those hands that were
raised, but I know some of them. And you'd have lost a lot of
money on whether or not they would be showing up at church
one day. People would have lost a lot of
money betting that their life would be transformed and
redeemed and that they would have the newness of life.
I've seen them do it over and over and over again, which is
why, with confidence, I believe that He can do it in you.
And so before you leave today, if you've never started that
intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I want you to
know you can take a step today. You can come up in just a few
moments when the people around you stand and pray and some of
them are singing and some of them come to the steps and pray.
I'm going to encourage you to walk right over here underneath
that screen next to the baptistry and talk to somebody.
Ask the question that's been holding you back.
If you don't want to talk to us, talk to somebody who brought
you, somebody in your row. Talk to somebody who you saw
their hand raised and say, tell me your story because I got to
know. Can God do in you or in me what
he's done in you? To the rest of you in the room,
to those of you who have a relationship with Jesus Christ,
I love how the the first verse ends.
The song ends by telling us to fall on our knees to hear the
Angel voices. And would you spend just a
little bit of time praying to God and thanking him for his
kindness and his goodness to you and the person and work of Jesus
Christ? Would you stand with me?
God, you are aware of every story that's represented in this
room. There's no sin that's hidden
from your sight. There's no pain that you're not
aware of. God, you know what's going
through every single person's mind and God right now.
I know that there are people that are right on the edge of
making a decision for you. I know that there are people
that are, I've been contemplating it for a long
time, whether or not they were going to start getting serious
about their faith. I know there are people in here
that have found their worth in all of the wrong places, and
it's time for them to find their worth in you.
And so God, I pray that you'd give every person that can hear
me a clear understanding of what it is that you want them to do
and then give them the courage to do it.
In your name I pray. Amen.