Christmas Eve 2021

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. The first Christmas, outside of shepherds in the fields, probably nobody else had a glorious show to watch. The first Christmas, by the way, I know I don't want to destroy everybody's understanding of their little nativity and everything, but the first Christmas did not have the wise men there. Most likely they came later, right? And there was no Holiday Inn. There was no, you know, Motel 6 or whatever, Bethlehem. Basically, the first Christmas was very simple, very plain. And unless the gospel like Luke recorded it and Mary gave those words, nobody much would have known about it. Because nobody important, according to the world, was there that night. So, maybe it's appropriate that we are celebrating Christmas this way today. So, we consider Christmas, though, man, hasn't it taken on a life of its own? It's so everything else these days. But this simple message, that one little knot, the one thing that gets solved, and then everything else starts to fall in place. We've made a tangled mess of our lives. In fact, it's worse than ever, I think. Now, I'm sounding like an old man now. Man, I don't remember being this. But I consider this is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. And yet, it seems the most stress-filled, anxious time with high expectations, struggles, trying to figure everything out, and we're just tired. What I've also been noticing, we've just gone through the last couple of years with this pandemic. It's not been quite two years. But this has been what's called the great resignation from jobs. It's also been the great migration away from different organizations, including church. And it's been also kind of the great sort. People are kind of doing different things. It was like you've had an excuse over the last year and a half to evaluate everything and go, like, is it worth it? And what I've noticed as well is a lot of people are just doing that in life in general. And it's just gotten accelerated. Is it really worth it? Is school worth it? Is that job worth it? Is church even worth it? All my habits, are they worth it? Is it worth my effort? And there's a professor named Ryan Burge, who I am indebted to. For the next semester, I'm going to teach a new class, and I'm able to use part of his syllabus and his ideas for it. And Ryan Burge wrote a book called The Nuns, which is basically when you fill out one of those surveys, it's the nothing in particular. It's the group of people now in the United States that's second largest to any other group, the nothing in particular when it comes to religious beliefs. But what he's noticed is it's over 20% of the population, and it's the fastest growing group in the United States. He's also noticed that the nothing in particulars about religion are also now nothing in particular about politics. They're not involved in any civic organizations. They basically have checked out of community. They have checked out of everything, including education. They have some of the lowest educational levels or aspirations in the nation. And at the same time, the nuns are growing. We also see a growing pandemic of opioids, despair, deaths of despair, as they call it, for different reasons, whether it's just, you know. And we're wondering what's going on in our society. Now you go like, why? This is Christmas, John. Do you not remember? We're here for some joy, peace, hope. Yeah, but we're realistic about it. This is what our world is like. This is the world Jesus came into, the tangled mess. And so sadly, I think people are looking at like the knotted mess of their lives and they just kind of want to throw it away and check out. So I love going through Isaiah. This I don't know how many of you have really enjoyed going through the prophet Isaiah over the last few weeks here. We're in chapter nine now. Last week was I know we kind of skipped around a bit and Sunday is going to be chapter 12. But the first 12 chapters of Isaiah kind of fit together as a neat little bundle. And in it, what's fascinating about it is Isaiah says some of the greatest words, some of the most profound, beautiful, hope-filled, joy-filled, loving, shocking, wonderful words in the midst of some of the worst times. Those difficult situations and the knotted mess called Israel at the time. Even our text tonight of Isaiah nine, which is probably got some of the most famous words, maybe because of the Messiah. If any of you ever sang in the Messiah by Handel, it's kind of fun, right? For unto us a child is born is in our text tonight. A son is given. I know we better not keep going. OK, it's one of my favorite pieces in it, but it starts out and we're going to look at it right now. It starts out this way, but there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. Did you catch that? See, Isaiah is speaking these words of hope and joy in the midst of gloo...