What up Crossing family, It is so good to be with you.
I want to welcome those of you joining from our different
locations, those of you watching online, and those of you who are
part of the crossing inside. I also want to welcome those of
you who are new to the crossing. Maybe it's your first time or
your first time in a long time. And if you have never stopped by
the New Here booth, we would love a chance to connect with
you and give you a gift. Before I jump into the message,
I want to give you a quick reminder we have new service
times leading up to our for our Christmas Eve services.
This year. We have a bold, evangelistic,
outwardly focused strategy, which means we will not be
having normal service times next weekend on the 19th and 22nd.
So if you go, you know what, we're going to go to church on
Thursday. You can come to church, you can
be at the church, but you won't be able to get inside the
church. And if you show up at the normal
times on Sunday, yeah, again, you can enjoy the parking lot,
pick it up if you see some weeds, but there won't be
anything going on. In fact, you need to check with
your local campus about your service times.
I want to remind you, last week I talked about this.
Lifeway Research did a serve and they found out that 57% of the
people that you invite to Christmas services would say yes
if you were to invite them to come with you.
And so that means that over half the people you invite will say
yes. So if you're going to join us in
trying to make this region the hardest place on planet Earth to
get to hell from, you need to know your service and who you're
going to invite so they can come and sit with you.
Last week when we were praying, we prayed over the names that
were kind of rattling around in your mind.
We prayed for open hearts. We prayed for boldness.
We prayed for two families and one, yes, but I'd like to do a
different prayer over all the people that we're going to be
inviting. So would you guys just pray with
me for just a second? God, I'm just, I'm coming to you
wanting more than just a yes out of the people that we're going
to invite. God, I want there to be
something that serves in their heart, something that stirs in
their spirit that would cause them to want to make a change.
That pursuing you would become part of their rhythm.
That in the weeks that follow our Christmas Eve services, that
they would be sitting next to us, going on the journey with
us. We desperately want people to
find and experience what we have found and experienced in You.
And so God would you just open doors that only you can open and
give us the words that need to be said and the exact way in
which the same help us as a church, just to fully trust that
your guiding and leading. In your name, I pray.
Amen. Well, to kind of keep the song
trivia alive, I've got some fresh ones for you.
Who tops the charts on digital Christmas downloads?
You might be thinking, is it? How many of you, Mariah Carey,
All I want for Christmas is you. I I see those hands.
God bless you for those hands. How many of you think it is
Kristen Bell with her 2013 release of Do You Want to Build
a Snowman? OK, some of you guys are just
not participating. All right?
How many of you think it's the Biebs mistletoe?
How many just just. OK, all right, interesting.
Speaking of mistletoe, I have to make an announcement on behalf
of the, the male staff members here at all of our locations.
We had a, a meeting this week and we just want to kind of say
this, we owe you guys an apology that there's been a mistletoe
shortage in our region. And that's because our wives
have been hanging up in every room of the house.
And to be honest with you, I'm speaking on behalf of them.
We're just, we're tired, we're worn out.
We just want to talk. And so if if there has not been
any mistletoe at your house. I see you, Zach.
I see I it's, it's just been it's been a long Christmas
already. OK, OK, So Justin Bieber
mistletoe. How many of you think it was
Dean Martin's 1959 two times platinum.
Let it snow. Let it snow.
If you just raised your hand,
you were wrong. Dead wrong, dead wrong.
Dean Martin went two times platinum, Justin the Biebs
Bieber went three times platinum.
Kristen Bell went four times platinum, but Mariah went 14
times platinum and is the clear undisputed winner.
Now let's do another one. What is the best selling single
of all time? This is going to get some of you
OK. Is it Elton John, Candle in the
Wind, 33 million copies sold. The Princess or the the tribute
to Princess Diana? Man, that was just right during
The Lion King time. It was gold.
I had that. I had that song.
Listen to it. It's gold.
How many of you guys even know that song I'm talking about?
It's like, OK, there's the boomers.
All right. Glad you guys are here.
All right. Is it Bing Crosby?
White Christmas, produced in 1942, was it?
What's the other one? Oh, We are the World by USA for
Africa with Quincy, produced by Quincy Jones, Lionel Richie,
Stevie Wonder, Kenny Rogers, Tina Turner, Steve Perry, Bob
Dylan, Ray Charles and Michael Jackson.
In fact, when they were arriving there to perform it, Stevie
Wonder was was greeting people at the door as they were coming
into the recording. He says if we don't get it in
one take, me and Ray are going to be giving everybody a ride
home. So they were motivated.
This was the first song certified multi platinum.
However, the undisputed winner with 50 million copies before
the chart era even existed was White Christmas with Bing
Crosby. Yeah, incredible.
Well, as a seller of more known as a seller of wine than for his
church attendance, he was shocked when the local priest
asked him to pen a poem for the upcoming Christmas Mass.
And as he traveled the bumpy, dusty Rd. by coach to Paris, he
read the Gospel of Luke and he imagined what it would have been
like to be there to see the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.
The mere thought of being in attendance on that glorious
night inspired him. Once the poem was complete, he
found himself so moved by his own work that he realized that
pen and paper would simply not do It needed a musician's hand.
So Placid turned to his friend Adolf Charles Adams, who had
scored operas and ballets and had fielded requests from London
and Berlin and Saint Petersburg. As Adolf studied Cantique de
Noel, he couldn't help but be impressed by its overtly
spiritual lyrics as they described the birth of a Savior.
It was a bit of a challenge for him because he was a Jew and
these words describe to Christ that he did not believe in and a
holiday he did not celebrate. However, he quickly and
diligently went to work attempting to marry an original
score to the beautiful poem, and just three weeks later it was
debuted at a midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.
The song became an instant hit and was wholeheartedly embraced
by the Catholic Church in France, and it's made of what
made its way to various Catholic Church services all across the
country. However, years later, Placid
walked away from the church and became part of the Socialist
movement. Then the church leaders
discovered that the musical composer Adolf was a Jew, so
they quickly and uniformly denounced the song by the
church. The heads of the French Catholic
Church at the time deemed Cantique de Noel unfit for
church services because of its lack of musical taste and total
absence of the spirit of religion.
However, their efforts to bury the song did not keep the French
people from singing it and humming it as they prepared and
celebrated the Christmas season. The song you already know, it is
O Holy Night. And the second verse is the one
that is almost never sung. The lyrics, well, the lyrics go
like this. Led by the light of faith,
serenely beaming with glowing hearts.
By his cradle we stand, So led by light of a star sweetly
gleaming. Here come the wise men from
Orient land. The King of Kings lay thus in
lowly Manger in all our trials. Born to be our friend.
He knows our need to our weakness.
No stranger. Behold your King before him
lowly bend. Behold your king before him,
lowly bend. We earn a series called Thrill
of Hope. A weary world rejoices.
Scott Bowman clearly stated that the world in which we live in is
messy. Hopelessness abounds, and the
further we stray from God, the more hopeless we become.
Rick Warren compiled a list of what happens when a culture
forgets God. This is what he says.
He said wealth is idolized. Truth is minimalized.
Life is trivialized. Television is vulgarized.
Our consciences become desensitized.
Education becomes secularized. Races are polarized.
Morals and ethics are sensationalized.
Immorality is popularized. Sin is glamorized.
The courts become paralyzed. Manners are uncivilized.
The breakup of the family is rational.
Everything is sexualized and commercialized.
Christians are demonized. God is marginalized.
No wonder our world is in such desperate need for hope, because
we as a culture have forgotten God.
Job records these words in chapter 8, verses 11 through 15.
Can papyrus grow tall where there is no marsh?
Can reeds thrive without water? While still growing and uncut,
they wither more quickly than grass.
Such is the destiny of all who forget God so perishes the hope
of the godless. What they trust in is fragile.
What they rely on is a spider's web.
They lean on the web, but it gives way.
In other words, those who forget God have no hope.
You probably know people who are leaning on something that they
believe that they hope is secure, but you've seen it give
out on them again and again and again.
It is a spider's web. However, today I have really
good news for you. Today you can have hope.
You can have it today, and it's not a weak hope.
It's not an uncertain hope, but a hope that is found in the
person and in the work of Jesus Christ.
Last week I quoted from AW Tozer.
What comes to your mind when you think about God is the most
important thing about you. And then I asked this question.
So what comes to your mind? My hope after last week was that
God is love and the implications that if God is love and we are
to love God and God tells us to love people, that we need to
expand our circle of who we classify as our neighbor.
Well, this week my goal is for you to walk out of here knowing
that God can be trusted and that God gets you, that God
understands you. Let's start with God can be
trusted. You can place your hope in him.
I'm not talking about an optimism.
Optimism has its benefits, but optimism is largely
psychological. How many of you at all of our
locations would this you're not going to get in trouble for
raising your hand. OK, let me say this.
You would you would say you are an optimist.
You're a glass half full kind of person.
No wonder you guys are such a cranky prude of people.
Just there's just, I don't know what it's like at other
locations, but I am just speaking to a room full of
pessimists. All right, I'm going to change
up my Christmas Eve message then.
All right. I'm not talking about optimism,
because if optimism is psychological, hope is something
altogether different. Hope is theological in nature.
Optimism says that things are going to be OK when they're not
great. Optimism is convincing yourself
that things are not really as bad as it is and all the
realists are going no, it's it's really bad.
You're you're in for it. Here's the difference.
Hope acknowledges the reality, but still speaks prophetically.
This is what Hope does. It is really, really, really
bad. But I still believe that I'm
going through. You might have encountered
wishful hope. Wishful hope is that hope that
your kids have that they're going to become a professional
athlete. Like, what are you going to do
when you grow up like that? Why am I even having to go to
school and learn this math stuff?
I've been making millions in the NBA.
We're sitting here like, that's a, that's a wishful hope or your
kids saying that they're going to be paid to be an online gamer
one day. Dad, if I keep practicing of
being an online gaming, I'll probably get paid one day to be
an online gamer. You're like, no, it's not going
to happen. That is a wishful hope.
Wishful hope is that somehow you're going to marry that girl
that you have never ever, ever talked to and has never talked
to you. Wishful hope is thinking that
she's going to walk over to you and say, Hey, would you please
be my husband? That is wishful hope.
Wishful hope is thinking that you are going to win the lottery
even though you have never played it.
It is just wishful hope. Wishful hope is that you are
going to lose the weight without making any adjustments
whatsoever. I got a guy meal prepping for me
and it's it's great. Problem is I ate two of them
last night. I was like this, so delicious.
I'll have two. But OK, I do have a praise
report. I should save this for a future
sermon. Have you ever read the back of
an Oreo package? Those just a quick, quick
update. I never have.
Those things are really bad for you.
I would, I would be, I was meal prepping and I was like, you
know, eating these meal prep meals and I was like this, I'm
doing great. I'll reward myself with some
mega stuffed Oreos. OK, you watch.
And I would I would ration myself to half of a package,
which is reasonable right? OK, come to find out every two
Oreos is 130 calories. I was eating a 12 pack of coke
per meal with no clue. So in wishful hope was that I
was thinking I was losing weight by meal prepping with mega
stuff. But that is not the hope I'm
talking about. Today you might have encountered
expectant hope. Expectant hope is at least based
in reality. This is what expectant hope is.
You have booked a family vacation at a resort that you
have been to before. You know what it's like.
You know what the beaches are like.
You've decided to purchase an upgrade.
You've looked at all of the pictures of what this upgrade
looks like, and you're going. This is going to be an
incredible vacation. It is an expectant hope.
However, what you can't guarantee is that your kids
won't get sick, that somebody won't get stung by a Jelly Bean
and you'll have to pee on somebody you weren't planning on
peeing on. You can't guarantee that the
weather will be nice, that the airlines will be on time.
There's a whole, and that's why you bought the travel insurance
because you can't guarantee that somebody in your family isn't
going to get sick and you're going to have to stay behind and
use the travel vouchers. It's an expected hope.
You have every reason to believe that it will be a great time,
but there's still part of you that is unsure.
And that is not the hope that I'm talking about.
I am talking about something so much better.
I'm talking about a certain hope that can only be found in Jesus.
Hebrews chapter 6, verses 19 through 20 says this.
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain where our
forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf.
You and I have an anchor for our soul that keeps us from being
blown away and destroyed as the storms of life do their best.
This hope is firm and secure because it is not rooted in US.
It is not rooted in our culture, our calendar, or our government,
but it is rooted in Him. Romans chapter 15 says this.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you
trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power
of the Holy Spirit. Leave this up on the wall for
just a second. I want to talk you through it.
Notice a couple of things here. One, God is the source of hope.
You are not the source of hope. You are not the source of hope
for you, and you are not the source of hope for anybody in
your life. God is the only source of hope.
The second thing is, God is not just the source.
God is the supplier of this hope, and look what happens to
you. Your joy increases, your peace
increases as your trust increases.
So if you're looking on the dashboard of your life right now
and it looks like your peace level is low, if it looks like
your joy levels are low, it is because your trust level is low.
But as your trust increases, that God is who He says He is.
As your trust increases that God promises to do what he says he's
going to do. As that increases, your joy will
increase and so will your peace, and then it will flow out of you
into other areas by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So hear me clearly when placeed, states in the opening lines of
the second verse, led by light of faith, serenely beaming.
This is not some untested, unverified, unreliable faith,
but one that has been proven strong, steadfast, and reliable
over and over and over again. Lots of people have bet against
God. Lots of people have doubted Him.
Lots of people have tested Him and he has never been proven
wrong. He has never not kept his word
and he has never lost a battle. And when your faith is in him,
you will have all the hope you could ever need.
And you might be thinking, all right, Clayton, great, a God
like this is phenomenal. Love it.
But how could a God that great ever know what I am going
through? How could he ever relate to me
in my circumstances? As if pulled from Scripture
itself? Placid states later on in the
second verse. In all our trials, born to be
our friend. He knows our need, our weakness.
No stranger, maybe you have seen as you've been watching
different sporting events. It's been on billboards and
sponsor placements in NASCAR and NBA Finals, March Madness, NFL
games. These three simple words he gets
us. This advertising campaign was
originally operated by the Servant Foundation and the goal
of the campaign was to reintroduce people to Jesus of
the Bible. Originally they decided they
were going to spend $100 million with a long term goal of
spending a billion dollars trying to help people realize
that Jesus understands the struggles we face.
The goal of the campaign is for people to find what we have
found in Hebrews chapter 4, verses 15 through 16.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with
our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every
way, just as we are, yet He did not sin.
Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence
so that we may find or we may receive mercy and find grace to
help us in our time of need. Jesus gets you.
You might be going, but Clayton, I've been hurt.
Yeah. So was Jesus.
Clayton. I've been betrayed by people I
cared about. So was Jesus, Clayton.
I've been abandoned. So was Jesus.
Clayton. I mean, I get all that, but I
mean, I've been wrongly accused. People have blamed me for
something I did not do. So is Jesus.
Husbands, has somebody in your house ever left a can of coke on
the counter and you got blamed for not being in the trash and
it wasn't you? In that moment, Jesus gets you.
Have you ever been misrepresented?
So is Jesus. Have you ever been tempted?
So is Jesus. Have you ever struggled?
So is Jesus. Have you ever been tired,
hungry, lonely? So is Jesus.
Have you ever been frustrated with the world around you?
So is Jesus. Jesus gets us.
You see, we don't just have a God who's undefeated.
We have a God who can relate, a God who gets us.
Two decades later, after the song had been banned by the
French Catholic Church, many commoners were still singing the
song as they prepared for the holiday season.
And legend has it that on Christmas Eve in 1871, in the
midst of fierce fighting between the armies of Germany and France
during the Franco Prussian War, a French soldier suddenly stood
up out of his trench. Both sides stared at the
seemingly crazed man, boldly standing with no weapon in his
hands and no weapon by his side. Realizing he hadn't been shot,
he lifted his eyes towards heaven.
And he sang the opening lines of Cantique de Noel once he
realized he had not been shot. After he sang the opening lines,
he continued to sing all three verses, his voice piercing the
night. And when he was done singing, a
German infantryman jumped out of his trench.
And he sang the lines from Martin Luther's robust From
heaven above to earth. I come about the birth of Jesus.
And what followed was for the next 24 hours, men at war with
one another observed a time of peace in honor of Christmas.
On that night, two men realized that they had a lot in common.
They were both at war, they were both in a muddy trench, they
were both afraid to die, they both wanted to celebrate
Christmas, and they were both in desperate need of some peace and
hope. And they got it.
And today, at all of our different locations, the war
within yourself and the war that you are waging against God can
come to an end. The good news is you don't have
to stand in front of everybody at the location that you're
gathered at and singing a couple songs until we go, all right,
you're in. It's not how it goes.
And the peace that you will experience will last way more
than 24 hours. But you do have to put your
weapons down and you do have to get out of the trench of your
sin. And when you do it, when you
come to life in Christ, when you begin that intimate, personal
relationship with Him, the weary world will rejoice and you will
finally experience the thrill of hope.
We're moving to a time of decision.
To those of you who are here and those of you watching online who
don't know Jesus, hear me. Every single one of you.
You need hope. It's been said, you've probably
heard it before, that you can live 40 days without food, 3
days without water, 8 minutes without air, but only one second
without hope. And you can put your hope in him
today. And if you're going to place
hope somewhere, it better be in him.
I don't know where you have it placed, but if it's not him,
it's unreliable. If it's not him, it doesn't have
a 100% accuracy rating, which means the hope that you have if
it's misplaced will not come through when you need it to.
In Hebrews chapter 6, right before I talked about the anchor
to our soul, it says that we flee to take hold of it.
What they're saying is they are fleeing, they are letting go,
and they are fleeing from any hope that they have that is not
Jesus. And they are running as hard and
as fast as they possibly can to take hold of the hope that is
Jesus. And the reason why is because
any hope that is not in Him is no hope at all.
So flee, run from whatever you have been hanging on to that is
not him, and grab a hold of him, and He will never let you go.
And so in just a few moments, how do you flee to Him?
When the people around you stand and sing and some of them come
to the steps and pray? I'm going to encourage you to
either turn and talk to the person that brought you that
you're sitting with, or maybe come up here to the steps
underneath the screen next to the baptistry and talk to
somebody about how to begin an intimate personal relationship
with him. Some of you, you know that it's
been a long time since you've been obedient to God in the area
of baptism. You've been going, you know
what? I I've just never said yes to
the clear teaching of Jesus in this area of my life.
And you're going, I'm trying to follow him.
I'm trying to trust him, but yet you're being deliberately
disobedient. Run to him.
He is undefeated and don't you
want to be on his team? To the rest of you, to those of
you that are here or watching online and you're just going
through it, like you're just in a season where you're just like
Clayton, I'm in it. I don't know exactly what you're
going through. I just want to give you a word
of encouragement. Don't let go of your hope in
Jesus. Keep hanging on.
Can I read a promise over you? Can I prophecy over you for a
second? Isaiah chapter 43 says this.
You can go home and highlight this one in your Bible, verses 2
and 3. When you go through the deep
waters, God will be with you. When you go down into the rivers
of difficulty, you will not drown.
When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be
burned, burned up. The flames will not consume you.
For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I came to tell you that the anchor holds.
Oh, does it hold. The anchor holds.
Even though the ship of your life has been battered, the
anchor still holds. Even though the sails of your
life are torn, the anchor still holds.
Even though the seas around you rage, the anchor still holds.
And whatever you are going through, do not let go of the
one who will get you through. Paul writes to one of the
churches and he says, who cut in on you?
You were running such a good race.
He's reaching out to a church that he started, that he was a
part of, that he was proud of. And he's getting reports back
that people who used to run for Christ, used to be committed to
Christ, used to be all in for Christ.
We're no longer running with Him.
He goes, Who cut in on you? Who enticed you to let go?
And right now, while you are going through storms and
difficulty and adversity, Satan is tempting you to let go of the
One who will get you through. Don't.
Don't let anyone cut in on you. Don't let anyone talk you out of
pursuing Jesus with all you have.
And while you're hanging on, who is somebody that you know who
could desperately use a certain rock solid anchor?
Holden Hope? Would you pray for them?
Would you guys stand with me? Heavenly Father, I'm asking you
to move in our lives right now. To take ground that only you can
take. In our hearts and our lives.
It's comforting to know that you know absolutely every single
thing about us and absolutely every single thing we're going
through and you know exactly what we need.
So would you guide us? Would you make what you want us
to do clear and give us the courage to do it?
You know I pray. Amen.