SPECIAL DAYS: 2004 Christmas Eve

Lessons: Psalm 98; Isaiah 52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-12); John 1:1-14

SERMON TITLE: The Power Connection

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INTRODUCTION:

  1. Behold, I Come Quickly (1)

The new preacher had just begun his sermon. He was a little nervous, and about ten minutes into the sermon his mind went blank. After a brief second of complete panic, he remembered what they had taught him in seminary about situations like this: repeat the last point. His teacher assured him this would help him remember what was supposed to come next. So he gave it a try.

"Behold, I come quickly," he said. Still his mind was blank. He tried again. "Behold, I come quickly." Still nothing.

He tried one more time -- speaking and gesturing with such force that he fell forward, knocking the pulpit to one side, tripping over the flower pot, and falling into the lap of a little old lady in the front row.

The young preacher apologized profusely.

"That's all right, young man," said the little old lady. "It was my fault. I should have gotten out of the way. You told me three times you were coming!"

  1. How many times have we head that Jesus is coming?

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MAIN BODY:

  1. How many times have we heard the reasons for the coming of Jesus?

    1. He is God with us.

    2. He has come to save his people from their sins.

    3. He has come to bring peace and goodwill to those whom he favors.

    4. He has come to teach the "good news."

  2. I like the purpose that is revealed in John 1:1-5, 10-13 (NRSVA)

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it...10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.

    1. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

    2. Psychologist James Hillman has written in "Kinds of Power: A Guide to its Intelligent Uses" (2)

"Power pops up all over the place: power brokers and power lunches; power books and power surges; power steering and power tools; power trips and power freaks; even power songs and power animals of New Age shamanism."

    1. The lesson for tonight plug us into a new kind of power-the power of the Christian.

  1. Jesus is the power connection.

    1. The follower of Jesus is the most powerful person in the world.

      1. It has nothing to do with political power

Secretary of State James A. Baker, III, on 1 February 1990 spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. (3)

"In 1986, I met with a group of diplomats who were gathered here for this National Prayer Breakfast. One of them asked me during the course of that meeting what was the most important thing I'd learned since being in Washington. And I replied that it was the fact that temporal power is fleeting.

"I told them about an experience I had early one morning a few years ago, when I was the White House chief of staff. As my driver turned the car into the northwest gate, I looked down Pennsylvania Avenue and noticed a man walking alone. He was someone many of you would have recognized -- the chief of staff in a prior administration. There he was alone -- no reporters, no security, no adoring public, no trappings of power -- just one solitary man alone with his thoughts. And that mental picture continually serves to remind me of the impermanence of power and the impermanence of place. That man had it all -- but he had it all only for a time. And that really, to me, put my life in perspective.

"I ask the question occasionally, 'When I leave Washington, what's going to remain?' One thing I know for sure -- the people who wouldn't return my telephone calls before I came to Washington aren't going to return them after I leave."

      1. It has nothing to do with physical strength.

(I have used this before with mixed results. There are those who will not believe that this can actually happen as it is described.).

"In a gun factory," writes an unknown author, "an elongated bar of steel, which weighed 500 pounds, was suspended by a chain. Beside it an average-sized cork was hanging by a silk thread.

It was swung gently against the bar which remained motionless. For 10 minutes the cork, with rhythmic regularity, continued to strike.

Then the heavy piece of steel began to move slightly. At the end of an hour both objects were swinging together like the pendulum of a clock!"

      1. It has nothing to do with money

The day before his birthday, a little boy went out with his mother as she ran her preparatory errands for the big occasion. At the grocery store, his mother whipped out her checkbook and paid for the groceries. At each destination on her list - the toy store, the party store, the clothing store - his mother wrote a check to pay for her purchases. Later that evening when his grandparents quizzed him about what he might want for his birthday, the boy didn't hesitate for an instant:"I want a mommy book." To demonstrate he ran to his mother's purse and pulled out her checkbook.

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  1. It has to do with the capacity for life change.

    1. There is a wonderful illustration of life change in the movie: Three Men and a Baby. (4)

Tom Selleck - Peter
Steve Guttenberg - Michael
Ted Danson - Jack
Billy Kay - Baby

    1. Three bachelor friends - architect Peter, artist Michael, and actor Jack are sharing an apartment in Manhattan.

    2. After Jack goes filming in Turkey his two flatmates find his baby daughter - which Jack doesn't know about - left outside their door.

    3. The two are left to look after the baby, and realise how difficult this can be.

      1. How would this baby change the life style of these confirmed bachelors?

      2. It's a wonderful story of three talented, powerful, affluent men who have their lives pretty well under control.

      3. Suddenly, their whole world is transformed by the presence of a baby.

    4. That's not a bad place to begin as a human response to the divine intrusion: the birth of Jesus of Bethlehem.

      1. We'll never begin to experience the power of the gospel until we begin to see it as a gigantic contradiction of everything the world calls power.

      2. We'll never begin to experience the power of the gospel until we begin to understand that there are places in the human soul where coercion can never go.

      3. We'll never begin to experience the power of the gospel until we realize that we will never experience the power of God's love until we give up our love of power.

    5. From beginning to end, the life of the Jesus is a challenge to see all of life turned inside out and upside down.

    6. From the moment of his birth in Bethlehem to the moment of his death on the cross, the life of Jesus is:

      1. - a direct contradiction of the world's ideas of power and control,

      2. - an invitation to repent,

      3. - a call to turn around and go in a different direction,

      4. - a call to conversion: to a whole new way of seeing, thinking, feeling, being, which is so radical it's like being born all over again.

    7. This is why the Christian has the capacity to be the most powerful person in the world.

      1. The Christian has the power to transform.

      2. The Christian can move mountains.

      3. We may not change the world, but we can change ourselves.

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CONCLUSION

  1. Life is like a rechargeable battery.

    1. What good is the battery if you cannot recharge it.

    2. We need the device that recharges batteries

    3. What do you need to charge your life?

  2. The Babe of Bethlehem, Jesus, the Christ is the Power Connection.

    1. We are like a battery.

    2. Jesus Christ is the one who recharges life.

    3. If you disconnect from the source of power you will rundown and lose energy.

    4. It is only when we stay connected that we are the most powerful people in the world.

1. Beliefnet Religious Jokes [BeliefnetReligiousJokes@partner.beliefnet.com]

2. James Hillman, Kinds of Power: A Guide to its Intelligent Uses (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1995), 10.

3. Address at 1 February 1990 National Prayer Breakfast, Washington, D.C., by Secretary of State James A. Baker, III, entitled "Faith, Friendship and Collective Responsibility" (Unpublished manuscript).

4. The exposition of this movie is dependent on a similar exposition done by James A. Harnish, Tampa, Florida, 28 November 1993.

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