The SermonCentral.com Weekly Newsletter
—December 15, 2003

Theme: Christmas

Dear SermonCentral.com user,

Last night I told my girls that I was going to read the Christmas story to them. They were busy with some project and said, "We already know that story." Later on my seven-year old daughter was telling me something she was worried about. I told her she needed to tell Jesus about it because He knew what it was like to be seven years old.
“Really?” she said.
“Yes - Jesus used to be a seven-year old.”

I grabbed a C.D. and we listened to a song called “Boy Like Me / Man Like You” by Rich Mullins. Here are a few of the lyrics:
You was a boy like I was once, but was You a boy like me?
Well I grew up around Indiana, You grew up around Galilee.
And if I ever really do grow up,
Lord I want to grow up and be just like You.
Well did You wrestle with a dog and lick his nose?
Did You play beneath the spray of a water hose?
Did You ever make angels in the winter snow?
And I really may just grow up and be like You someday.

She was amazed by the idea that Jesus knew what it was like to be like her. Just an hour earlier she thought she had heard it all.

I know that there are people in your congregation that think "we already know that story." I also know that sometimes as a preacher you may think "What can I say about Christmas this year?" My advice -- don’t worry about being original or cleaver. The message is still amazing -- 2000 years ago Christ came to be like us, so that someday we could be like Him. Proclaim it with passion.

Your Partner,
Brian Mavis
brian@sermoncentral.com

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In This Issue

1. Top 5 Sermons On Christmas

2. The Passion of The Christ

3. Top 5 Illustrations On Christmas

1. Top 5 Sermons On The Advent of Christ

Journey From Then Til Now
by Rick Stacy: Matthew 1:21-25
Have you ever noticed how Christmas a very polarizing holiday? People either really love Christmas or they really dislike it. Let me give you a few examples:

For every person that says, “I can’t wait to be able spend some extra time with my more

The Christmas Collision
by Brian Bill: John 1:14-18
During the summer of 1977 I was in the front seat of my friend’s car as we were out for a drive, listening to some music at a pretty high volume. My job was to keep the tunes coming and his job was to drive. As I was bending over to search for another 8-track tape (I told you it was the 70s!), more

Christmas Eve 2002
by Jeff Armbrester: Isaiah 9:2-7
We say that Christmas is the season of giving. But is it really? Why do you buy gifts to give? Let’s be honest. Do you buy gifts because you know someone will be buying you a gift? While it may be more blessed to give than to receive, it is more difficult to receive. When we receive gifts, we more

How The Grinch Couldn’t Steal Christmas
by Carla Powell: Luke 2:1-20
Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas has always been a favorite of mine, but this year, it has also made quite a box office splash. In this annual Christmas story, the old Grinch who lives on a mountain has been annoyed by the merriment of the Who-ville townspeople at Christmas. more

Christmas trees
by Chris Talton: Genesis 2:8-9
It’s Christmas time. I suppose that this time of year is filled with more family traditions than any other. I know that if I were to poll this group of people, we would find that each of you has your own special ways that you celebrate at this time of year. Some of you celebrate by gathering the more

2. The Passion of The Christ


The Passion of The Christ Sermon Series - Free
We want to help you prepare for the release of The Passion of The Christ. We put together a team of pastors and authors - who saw a private screening of the movie - to write sermons inspired by The Passion. We have two series for you to download:

Experiencing the Passion of Christ.
1. Experience Pure Love
2. Experience Complete Forgiveness
3. Experience Ultimate Wholeness
4. Experience Everlasting Life

The Passion: True or False?
1. Jesus is the Son of God – True or False?
2. Jesus is the Only Way to God – True or False?
3. Jesus Died for You – True or False?
4. Jesus is Alive – True or False?

Click here to download these sermon series.

Passion News – Two Thumbs Up From Billy Graham
After a private screening of Mel Gibson's biblical epic, "The Passion of The Christ," Rev. Billy Graham said, "I doubt if there has been a more graphic and moving presentation of Jesus' death and resurrection, which Christians believe are the most important events in human history. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association also said he "was moved to tears" by the film. Graham said, "The film is faithful to the Bible's teaching that we are all responsible for Jesus' death, because we all have sinned."

Passion Outreach Idea – The Passion of The Christ Preview
By January 5th most churches in the United States will have received a DVD from Outreach, Inc. containing a trailer from the movie. This DVD was created to give you the tools and ideas to equip your church to invite people to see the movie and then invite them back to church. Take time during your weekend services to show the G-rated trailer of the movie to your congregation and then share with them how your church will be helping equip them to reach their friends and neighbors for Christ.

Get Christmas PowerPoint Templates at SermonCentral.com. Click here.

     

3. Top 5 Illustrations On The Advent of Christ

MAKE CHRISTMAS MEMORABLE
As one department store advertised in December of 1983 "Make this Christmas one you will not soon forget – charge everything!"
Jeff Strite

Contributed by: SermonCentral PRO

OUR LEADER, A BABY
We do well to remember, before we consign the concept of spiritual leadership to the arena of the superstar, that we serve a God who invaded this planet as a small, fragile baby.
—Stanley Rinehart

Contributed by: Don Hawks

MEANING OF CHRISTMAS?
A television interviewer was walking the streets of Tokyo at Christmas time. Much as in America, Christmas shopping is a big commercial success in Japan. The interviewer stopped one young woman on the sidewalk, and asked, "What is the meaning of Christmas?"

Laughing, she responded, "I don’t know. Is that the day that Jesus died?"
There was some truth in her answer.

SOURCE: Donald Deffner, Seasonal Illustrations, San Jose: Resource, 1992, p. 16. http://www.sermons.org/christmas5.html

Contributed by: SermonCentral PRO

UNWRAPPING THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT
“To get ready for Christmas, God undressed. God stripped off his finery and appeared – how embarrassing – naked on the day he was born. . .

God could not be God-with-us if he wasn’t flesh...

As evangelicals we have focused on the saving death of Christ but thrown out the Incarnation in our Christmas wrappings.

As we cover God with Christmas, we hide what is most distinctive about Christianity. And this is the tragedy: What many don’t know about Christianity is that God has chosen to identify with their pain, their humanness, their flesh.

This is what we’ve lost as we’ve exchanged the Feast of the Incarnation for Christmas."

SOURCE: Mary Ellen Ashcroft, “Gift Wrapping God,” Christianity Today, 12-8-97, p. 32-33. From "God in a Body" by Matthew Rogers on www.sermoncentral.com.

Contributed by: SermonCentral PRO

THE CHRISTMAS STORM: A Modern Parable by Paul Harvey
"This is about a modern man, one of us, he was not a scrooge, he was a kind, decent, mostly good man, generous to his family, upright in his dealings with others. But he did not believe in all that incarnation stuff that the Churches proclaim at Christmas time. It just didn’t make sense to him and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just could not swallow the Jesus story about God coming to earth as man. I’m truly sorry to distress you, he told his wife, but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve. He said he’d feel like a hypocrite. That he would much rather stay home, but that he would wait up for them. He stayed, they went. Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier, then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound. Then another and another. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. Well, when he went to the front door, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They had been caught in the storm and in a desperate search for shelter they had tried to fly through his large landscape window. Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze. He remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter -- if he could direct the birds to it. He quickly put on his coat and galoshes, trampled through the deepening snow to the barn, opened the door wide, and turned on a light. But the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in and he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow making a trail to the yellow lighted wide open doorway of the stable, but to his dismay the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them, he tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms -- instead they scattered in every direction except into the warm lighted barn. Then he realized they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature, if only I could think of some way to let them know they can trust me. That I’m not trying to hurt them, but to help them. How? Any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him. If only be a bird myself he thought. If only I could be a bird and mingle with them and speak their language, and tell them not to be afraid, and show them the way to the safe, warm barn. But I'd have to be one of them, so they could see and hear and understand.

At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sound of the wind. He stood there listening to the bells. Adeste Fideles. Listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.

SOURCE: Paul Harvey Contributed by Jeff Strite, Church of Christ at Logansport, IN.

Contributed by: SermonCentral PRO

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