Christmas Eve 2025

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. Next Sunday, we're going to finish this series called Woven, but tonight kind of is the culmination of it. We started it... in the first Sunday, what's called Advent, right after Thanksgiving, and have continued this theme all the way through. Now, you might wonder, how in the world did this theme come about? Because it doesn't seem that Christmassy woven. Like, it's more about fabric? What's going on? It might be more Christmassy, though, than you think. Though it is a metaphor that we've been using of how God, there is a scarlet thread that runs from Genesis already all the way through Revelation, that scarlet thread that lines up and runs through every story and every event for this culmination, we don't think of it as a Christmassy theme. But I wonder sometimes about some of the Christmas traditions that we do have. Last year, I saw a special on TV call from Nate Bergadze. Have you heard of him? He's a comedian. He did a little stick or skit on the nativity in his Nashville Christmas. And it does bring to mind a few things of, hmm, I wonder why we do that. Rejoice, for God's son Jesus is born in Bethlehem. Let this day be called Christmas, and let it be celebrated each year by gathering with family. Amen. Praise the Lord. Amen. And by putting a big pine tree in your house. A pine tree, Angel? Yes, a big pine tree. And God commands the pine tree shall be decorated with the glittering glass ornaments of incredible beauty, also with garbage that your children make at school. Angel, forgive me. How does a pine tree decorated with glass balls and... Garbage? Yes, garbage. How does that celebrate the birth of Jesus? I don't know. But there is more to Christmas than the pine tree. There will also be much drinking of eggnog, and people will sing many joyous songs. Songs about Jesus? A few boring ones, yes. Angel, I'm confused. None of what you're describing feels connected to Jesus. These celebrations do not just honor Jesus. They honor the almighty being who resides atop the world. God. No, Santa Claus. Angel, how much of Christmas is about Santa, and how much is about Jesus? 90/10 Santa. But do not fear, Mary, for on this day, the faithful will gather in houses of worship and honor Jesus' birth for one hour. Only an hour? Your churches will be an hour. Your church will be all day. A little humor. But I think it kind of makes a point. So many of the things that we do around this time of the year may not have anything to do with the original Christmas, the original celebration that we're doing. And in fact, Gallup, I just saw today, recently had a poll. It says, Secular Christmas traditions persist as sacred ones decline. Most Americans who celebrate Christmas exchange gifts and decorate, but fewer than half now say they attend church. So we fuse a lot of things together. in our Christmas celebrations. And we fabricate meaning out of all these things, and we try to figure out and make it really a special time of the year. Tonight I'd like, though, not to talk and necessarily diss all of those things. I think a lot of them are a lot of fun. But I want to talk more about how God has woven and knitted you together, that He already planned to have you when He said, Let there be light. and that God then has interlaced this world so wondrously and in harmony and peace. And even as we kind of rip that fabric all apart through our disobedience, wanting to do it our way, how God chooses instead, and tonight we celebrate this, of Him coming and weaving Himself into our very DNA, being human. And that's why we've chosen this theme, Woven, and how I think it does celebrate Christmas deeply. Now, you might wonder, though, about the images that you saw in that opening video, because, well, why those images? It's kind of a long story, but not too long. When Lisa and I and Justin was born out in California, but when we lived out there, we had about 100 members in our church, that joined our church, who were from the Lahusi Hill Tribe of Southeast Asia. The Mian, the Hmong, the Akha, the Karen, the Lisu, these are other groups as well from Southeast Asia. And those images, when I found them on the web under a public domain site, were of these tribes as they weave together. And so one of the articles that we purchased out in California at a handicraft store was from the Lahu who weaved this together. This probably took a week or two because it's all manually done. It's not, there's no machine, there's no, you know, digital whatever going on. This is the metaphor of what God has done in our lives, and that's why those images as well make a lot of sense. We kind of put this out often at Christmas because of the red and green colors that are in it. So, God is taking not just a couple of weeks, He's taking all of time to weave together his plan and his dream, and he is bringing it to completio...