Message Series: Keeping Christmas Well
Week 2
Scripture: Matthew 2
Bottom Line: Focus on Jesus' story and His gift to us.
Group Check in:
How is it with your soul?
Prayer Request? Praises?
How has God shown up in your life this week?
Icebreaker:
Share your favorite Christmas gift you ever received.
Share the best gift you ever gave someone.
Overview:
This message is about when we reclaim Christmas past, it must change how we celebrate Christmas in the present. Perhaps our celebrations ought to be marked less by gifts that we don’t need and more by the kind of gift that God gave us: presence, personal, costly.
We can’t tell people at Christmas that Christ loves them without becoming agents of that love ourselves. When we focus less on the money, we are freer to give more of ourselves, our time, our talent, and our heart to the ones we love. Spend less to give more!
When we go back to the original story and see the powerful posture of praise, worship, and prayer that every person is drawn into, it ought to lead us to reconsider the way we celebrate in today’s world.
Perhaps it should begin with spending a little less because we ought to recognize that it fails to deliver on the promise. Many of us think that the only way our loved ones have a great Christmas is if we spend more. And it works...for a few minutes, then the feeling fades and we’re left with Scrooge wondering what joy there is in the world? These types of gifts cannot deliver on its promise of fulfillment. (Over half of Americans spend more than they expect and a third go into debt- all in an effort to make the people around them happy.) This can’t be the only way we change, surely, we need to examine the gift of Christmas to see how it shapes the way we give this Christmas.
It’s not wrong to give, but let’s change the way we give. Two examples:
1. Magi: Gold- royalty, Frankincense- deity, Myrrh- sacrifice
2. Gift of God in Christ was His presence. It was personal, intimate, and costly.
The incarnation is the story of God’s love poured out to the entire world without reservation!
Discussion Questions:
The Christmas story brings about joy; yet there’s a dissatisfaction, discontent, disaffection that seems to also come with this season. What path leads us out of that malaise?
When we explore the original Christmas story, how does it change not only our personal approach to Christmas, but the way we engage each other in celebration and gift-giving?
The incarnation is the story of God’s love poured out to the entire world without reservation. Does our celebration reflect that story?
How can we change, not eliminate, but change our Christmas traditions so that they begin to reflect the power of the Christmas story to reveal the goodness of God in our lives?
Can we genuinely say that our Christmas celebrations echo the meaning of Christmas? And if not, what should we do?
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