The Perspective of Christmas | Tony Evans Christmas Sermon

In this message, Dr. Tony Evans reminds us that Christmas should bring us more than just shopping, eating and family time. It should bring us to a place of worship, reminding us of God’s grace and helping to reorient us to follow His guidance.

The Perspective of Christmas | Tony Evans Christmas Sermon

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Dr. Tony Evans is the founder and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, founder and president of The Urban Alternative and author of over 100 books, booklets and Bible studies. The first African American to earn a doctorate of theology from Dallas Theological Seminary, he has been named one of the 12 Most Effective Preachers in the English-Speaking World by Baylor University. Dr. Evans holds the honor of writing and publishing the first full-Bible commentary and study Bible by an African American. His radio broadcast, The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, can be heard on over 1,400 radio outlets daily and in more than 130 countries. Dr. Evans’ sermons are also streamed and downloaded over 20,000,000 times annually.

So as you approach this Christmas, if you need to hear from god and you need direction for your life, maybe you ought to spend a little less time at the party and a little bit more time in the worship.
So that as you approach the new year, you can get a word from god about the direction of your life because god guides you another way.
Why is men still seeking? During Christmas. Why? Because God is there when Jesus is being glorified.
Well, I hope you’re enjoying, uh, this series on the meaning of Christmas as much as I am. I Uh, it was exciting just to be reminded myself in preparation about, uh, why this holiday is so special, why it’s so critical why it’s so misunderstood and why it needs to be much more deeply appreciated by those of us who, uh, who celebrated by those who do not understand it so that we can help clarify what this holiday is all about.
This is session number 3. We talked about the person of Christmas.
That is the unique person, Jesus Christ, the god man. We’ve talked about the purpose of Christmas.
It really is God becoming man to deal with a problem, the problem of sin that needs to be addressed for all humanity.
And in fact, if you’ve missed The first two parts, if you missed the first two lessons, uh, you can get this whole series, all four parts, simply by contacting us here at the Urban Alternative.
We’d be glad to get the whole thing to you so that you can have Christmas in perspective, a biblical perspective.
Based on the word of god. Talk about perspectives.
Today, I wanna look at some different perspectives of different people who were, uh, who were involved with Christmas.
Uh, you know, we we’re we’re big at our house during Christmas on, on wrapping gifts.
I really have never understood gift wrapping because you make it pretty to make it ugly again.
I mean, you you go in and you you’re tearing the paper, tearing it all apart, and it just economically challenges me to buy paper and wrap to tear it up.
But, uh, in addition to the the paper that’s torn up, we we have some other gift wrapping at our house that sit outside When you walk up to our front door, there are these beautiful, well wrapped gift boxes as you enter the home.
Now the problem with those gift boxes is that they are empty. Okay?
Uh, there’s nothing inside, although it looks pretty.
That’s a lot of what Christmas is for a lot of folks.
Is well wrapped emptiness. Many people find Christmas to be a depressing time.
The loneliness, the loss of a loved 1, uh, uh, family breakdown, or families have to be disseminated, And so they do other things to gift it up, even though they may be hollow on the inside.
And when you do not understand the true meaning of Christmas, you can make it pretty, but it’s hollow inside because its true meaning is missing.
When there was the 1st Christmas, We see a number of people involved in this occasion.
Of course, we know Joseph and Mary were involved.
Uh, Joseph being a righteous man, uh, did not, uh, put his, uh, wife to be on display given her pregnancy.
That he had absolutely nothing to do with, which I’m sure took a lot of faith on his part.
Yeah. Okay? How can this thing be?
Mary asked it, but I’m sure he had some questions too before the angel clarified how exactly this took place.
But we introduced in chapter 2 of Matthew to some other uh, personalities.
The first personality whose perspective I wanna give you, and we’ll we’ll come back to this first one again, but Since after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of hero of the king, Majai, we call him the wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born King of the Jews?
For we saw his star in the east and have come. To worship him.
Here we have a group of Magi. We don’t know how many they were.
I know tradition has it as 3 simply because they gave 3 gifts.
So that’s why you typically see 3, but you can have multiple people bringing, uh, the same gift.
So so we don’t know how many they were, but one thing is clear.
They came to worship him from a long way away.
Their perspective was Jesus was worth the worship, and Jesus was worth the inconvenience to get to worship.
These men, when they came to worship Jesus, took a extremely long time to get there to him.
Because when they arrived to Jesus, he’s a child, not a baby in the manger.
So they see his star, his star, not merely a star, his star, uh, you might call it to use old testament terminology, shekinah glory, a unique divine presence in the sky.
That means that they had looked at the prophecies concerning Jesus as being the revelation of god and decided this child was worthy of worship.
But by the time they arrived there, he’s a child in a house not a baby in a manger.
It said later on in chapter 2, when they reached the house and saw the child.
Which means that if they initiated their movement to Jesus, when they saw the star of his birth, but didn’t arrive till he was a child, and the Greek word there means toddler, that means this could have been a 1 to a 2 year journey by horse or caravan.
Coming from the oriental east to the Middle East. They aren’t flying planes.
They aren’t traveling at supersonic speed. But they decided that this child was worth this journey.
That’s hard to get some folk to drive 20 minutes today.
Uh, they’ll go to a party, but not have time for worship service because they don’t have the right perspective on Christmas.
They will spend a lot of time enjoying the celebrations.
Maybe maybe a minute or 2.
Reflecting on the real reason for the holiday, not these wise men.
Not these men who took this journey because they decided this child is worth my worship.
So the question you have to ask is, does Christmas invoke worship in your life, or is it just another holiday where Jesus’ name is thrown around?
These wise men sought him.
And because they sought him, after they found him, It says god revealed himself to them because chapter 2 says they were warned by god in a dream not to return to harrod, and the manjar left for their own country another way.
Guess what they got because they had a divine focus on Christmas. They got divine guidance.
They got a warning and a new direction. People in life need guidance.
They need to know how to make decisions, how to move the right way.
The Magi, the wise men found guidance in their worship of Jesus Christ at Christmas.
Now Christmas precedes the new year. The new year is assumed to be new beginnings.
It’s a time for New Year’s resolutions.
It’s a time when people are planning to how they’re going to flow for the next 12 months.
So it’s a great time to hear from god on divine guidance, but they got divine guidance in their worship, not in their opening their Christmas gifts, not in their parties, not in their celebrations, it was in their worship of Jesus Christ, the son, where they got guidance from the living and true god.
So as you approach this Christmas, if you need to hear from god and you need direction for your life, maybe you ought to spend, uh, a less a little less time at the party and a little bit more time in the worship.
So that as you approach the new year, you can get a word from god about the direction of your life, about warnings, ways you shouldn’t go.
Situations you shouldn’t be in because god guides you another way. They got guidance because they had worship.
Why is men still seek him during Christmas? Why?
Because god is there when Jesus is being glorified and when Jesus is being worshiped.
So this 1st group, the wise men, went through great convenience to get to where Jesus was, and they got to hear from heaven because of it.
Now we have another person who shows up whose perspective, uh, is important for Christmas.
It says, when Harry, the king, chapter 2 verse 3 says, heard this.
He was troubled in all of Jerusalem with him.
When Harry The king heard this.
What exactly did he hear? He heard what the manager I was looking for.
Where is the king of the Jews that we might worship him?
And when Harry got shook up, It says all of the Ruth of him got shook up with him.
Why? Cause if you make Howard mad, you’re in trouble. And Howard was shook up.
He was destabilized. What was it about?
What the Magile was looking for that messed up Aaron?
It was that the match I was looking for another king, and herod was the king.
And Harris’s perspective is we’ll have room for 2 kings. I’m the king here.
So when you come looking for this other kin you’re talking about, we have issues.
And if I had have an issue, y’all over who I’m ruling. Y’all have an issue too.
Because I’m upset. You better be upset.
Cause you’re in trouble because I’m in trouble, because we got these folk looking for another king.
Jesus Christ has always had problems with people who don’t want his rule in their life and in their world.
We want a savior we can rule over. Yeah. Not a savior who rules over us.
Herrod was upset because there were gonna be too many kings in Jerusalem.
He would be the king of the Jews, and he would be worshiped as a king and as the living and true god.
So the second person we have here is a person who brought trouble to the rule of man by bringing the rule of god.
So here’s the question you’ve gotta from this lesson of Harry. We’ve already looked at the wise men.
He’s worthy of worship at Christmas, because this was during the time of his birth, even if it’s inconvenient for me.
But does he have the right to be king over your life?
Does he have the right for you to submit your rulership to his authority.
Does he have final say so in your life, or do you wanna keep him at bay because you don’t want his rule, his decision making power.
And watch this. Are other people negatively affected because you do not allow him lordship?
I’d like to suggest to you that a lot of other folks are in trouble because we’re in trouble with Jesus being king.
When a man says Jesus can’t be king over my life, his family may be in trouble.
His kids could be in trouble. The order in his home could be in trouble.
When a society says we don’t want Jesus and his principles ruling here.
That nation could be in trouble. In fact, you can have churches that are in trouble.
Because the pastor won’t even let Jesus rule in the house of god.
This was true in the old testament. They carried on their worship without the rulership of the living god.
And so there was disorder The Bible says when there was no true god, that there was this harmony in the culture.
So the unraveling of lives families, churches, even the whole of society, can be simply because we don’t want this king ruling over our lives.
And that trouble brings trouble for us. So we see the wise men worthy of worship.
We see Howard. We don’t have room here for another king.
I wanna be ruler of my own life, captain of my own ship, master of my own fate.
So we’ll we’ll carry on the celebration. Uh, notice what herod’s statement was.
He says, gather together all the chief priests and the scribes He inquired of them where Messiah would be born.
He wanted to know where Messiah would be born. And he wanted the magic to tell him.
He said, uh, when you had found him in verse 8, reported to me So I too may come and worship him.
Now he had the right words. He was talking We would call it talking smack.
He was talking noise. He used the words of Christmas without the worship of Christmas.
He had the rappy, but there was an emptiness hollow inside, because he didn’t mean it.
He was utilizing it without meaning it. That’s what happens today.
We have the language of Christmas, the songs of Christmas, the celebration of Christmas, the programs of Christmas, the activity of Christmas, and it’s well wrapped without the meaning of Christmas.
Because people have the wrong perspective about Christmas because they don’t want Jesus to rule.
They wanna keep him in a manger.
They wanna keep him cute and pretty, and I wanna deal with why Christmas exists.
But there’s a third group. It says he calls the scribes and the pharisees, or the chief priest.
And he says, I want you to get this information.
Where is this Jesus to be born? Where is this king to be born?
So he calls the religious leadership And the religious leadership tells him what had been written.
Verse 6 And you Bethlehem Land of Judah.
You normally means the least of the leaders of Judah, but out of you shall come for the ruler.
Who will shepherd my people, Israel. Interesting.
He calls religious leaders And the religious leaders quote, scripture.
That means they know their Bible.
So the one who didn’t want Jesus to be king calls the religious leaders and say, tell me where he is to be born.
And they give him impeccable information, but we have something missing here.
While they knew the Bible, they never made the trip. Right. That’s right.
While they knew the word they never went a few miles down the street because Bethlehem is right down the street.
They had studied the scripture but didn’t do what the wise men did go to worship the lord, which means you can have religion attached to Christmas.
Without relationship attached to Christmas. You can know the Bible and not know the lord.
You can sing the songs and not know the savior. You can celebrate the occasion.
Without experiencing the relationship.
Jesus spoke of such a, uh, a mindset in in Saint John.
The 4th gospel, and he says this in chapter 5, he tells them that that they had the word, and they studied the scriptures, but they did not know the lord.
He tells them that you search the scriptures verse 39 because you think in them, you have eternal life.
It is in these who testify of me, but you’re unwilling to come to me.
You know the scriptures, but you don’t come to me.
The religious leaders knew the scriptures, but they didn’t go to Jerusalem.
If the scriptures don’t lead you to Jesus, then you’ve got a well wrapped holiday because you’re reading the Bible, you’re quoting the verses, but you’re not drawn to the savior.
This Christmas season will be full of religious activities.
Jesus will get a little play.
He’ll get a little they’ll they’ll quote about him, talk about him, mention him, recognize him, throw out his name, but we will be living in the midst of a well wrapped culture who won’t come to him.
If what you read about him doesn’t draw you to him. You don’t experience him.
So as you interact with yourself and others during this holiday season, You don’t wanna be like Harriet, reject his rule.
You don’t wanna be like the religious leaders, read his word, know his word, be able to quote his word.
Now you won’t be like the wise men who didn’t have all the biblical information.
Because they were, they were searching. Where is he?
So they they didn’t have all the they they didn’t have all the exegesis, and they didn’t have all the theology.
They didn’t have all that. But they were looking for him.
And the Bible says, if you look for me, you’ll find me when you search for me with all of your heart.
So don’t let religion keep you from the savior.
Because you’ve read the Bible, know the verses, and sing the song, make you think you’ve understood the holiday.
The meaning of Christmas is a personal encounter. With Jesus Christ.
You need that out, and you’ve missed Christmas.