When Two Realities Collide

Well, Merry Christmas! It is good to see all of you this evening at Shepherds Gate. My name’s Tim. I get the privilege of being one of the pastors and staff members here and we are so grateful and humbled that you are with us here at Shepherds Gate.

If there’s anything we can do, please let us know. I also want to say hi to those that are streaming in online all over the U.S. We’re so thankful that we have the technology and the ability to do that. I also know there’s some college kids with us and I bet the college kids are glad to be home.

Exams are over, right college kids? I’m gonna need your help and the message today, just so you know. And then we also have some kids here. Kids, you’re being really quiet.

Can you just go ahead and wave at me, kids? I’m giving your parents anxiety right now, okay? Parents, just so you know, this is a very family-friendly, kid-friendly church. We love having the kids in our Christmas and Easter services. And so kids, if you’ve been here in the past, you know I always have a special moment that I’m also gonna need your help and there’s something special for you in the message.

So adults, parents, just so you know, this message today is just as much for you as it is for them. But again, we’re so glad to have you here. And isn’t it incredible to be a kid at Christmastime? I mean, so many of us were brought back to those childhood memories and tomorrow and waking our parents up way too early and going to that tree and unwrapping all of those gifts.

But do you know it’s also equally as exciting for kids to be at a Christmas service? Because this is the one time every single year the church actually trusts children to hold an open flame for a good two and a half, three minutes and not burn the church down. And wouldn’t you know, we’ve already been through four services and the building’s still here. So kids, some of you, I know you already have the candle and you’re like, come on, hurry it up, preacher.

Let’s get to the candle lighting. But we know that’s going to be a special moment for us this evening. But before we do that, can we just kind of go back, rewind, and think about 2025? I don’t know about you, but one of the things that I often do this time of year, especially as we’re getting closer and closer to the new year, is actually reflect on the previous year.

And I was wondering, could we just admit that 2025 has been a really weird year? I mean, it’s been a little wonky, hasn’t it? A lot of weirdness has happened in our society, in our country, and sometimes we get mixed messages and we’re not even sure, you know, how to articulate all of the information that’s constantly being bombarded and sometimes even, you know, shoved down our throats. Or maybe another way to say it is this, do you ever feel like everything that we’re being told is actually untrue? Even though we have access to information, you know, constantly, we have to decipher and figure out what’s true and what’s not true. And part of that is the rate of technology.

Many of you know this, this has been true for the last several years, that technology doubles in capacity every one to two years. And that’s even hard for our human minds to understand, just how quickly everything is evolving. Those of you that have been around a while, okay, this is for my seasoned friends that are out there.

Do any of you know what is in this picture? What’s in this picture? Oh, some of you do. Thank you for those that were brave enough to say it. That is a telephone.

And who’s the guy in the picture? Alexander Graham Bell. Now, here’s what’s really interesting. My grandmother’s maiden name is Bell.

And she told us, her entire life, that we were related to Alexander Graham Bell. And here’s the thing, no one has ever fact-checked her. No one has actually done the research, because nobody has time to do that.

But grandmas don’t lie, do they? And so it’s much more fun to just tell people that we’re related to Alexander Graham Bell, because grandma said it, and if grandma said it, then it must be true. And it’s interesting that as you look at this invention, that it actually took 75 years before 100 million people had access to it. And then all of a sudden comes along this technology called televisions.

How many of you remember the day when you were so proud that you brought into your home a 200-pound, 13-inch television? And that was your prized possession, and you saved your money, and maybe you took out debt, or whatever you did, because everyone had to have a television. And now all of a sudden, we live in a society where people put televisions in their bathrooms, and they even have them on the front of their refrigerators. I mean, it’s crazy.

You can put an 85-inch flat screen in every single room of your house. What about the Internet? Thank God that when God blessed us with the Internet, that when we go on the Internet, everything we read is true. We never have to doubt that the information we’re looking at might not be accurate.

Or how about when we all of a sudden got a computer in the palm of our hands? And let’s be honest, many of us, this thing is attached to us. I mean, it might as well be a third arm. We live, breathe, and eat our cell phone.

And if you’re next to somebody like that, go ahead and just elbow them right now. Help them admit that, oh, look at how many elbows are flying right now. And then all of a sudden, we entered into this whole new reality called social media.

And they said, oh, this is going to be able to help you stay connected to your family and friends. It’s going to be great for your self-esteem. You’re never going to compare yourself to anybody else.

It’s just going to be this awesome platform, and we all are addicted and on social media, aren’t we? And yet the statistics come back that it’s actually not even good for our health. That it’s actually making people depressed. And now there’s countries that are actually outlawing social media for teenagers until they reach a certain age.

Well, what’s fascinating is, is there one thing that’s missing from this list? Kids, college students, can you help me? What’s the thing that’s missing that you guys are all actively using? There we go. Someone said chat GPT. What’s it called? AI.

And it only took months for AI to get into everyone’s hands. So let’s have a little fun. How many of you know what these are? What’s the first one? What’s the second one? Gemini.

What’s the third one? There we go. Clods. What’s the last one? Perplexity.

Somebody got it over here. Some of you are saying I have no idea what you’re talking about right now. These are the platforms that your kids and grandkids live on.

These are all AI platforms, artificial intelligence. And we are so blessed that whatever you put into AI always gives you an accurate answer back. That’s how smart it is.

How about these? Anybody know what these ones are? Wrong. Very good. You’re artistic.

Canva. Kids, kids know this one. CADCUT, because they all use it to make their videos.

And how about this last one? It’s a curveball. Oh, someone said it. Now, listen to this.

This one’s called Notebook LM. And I just learned about this one last week. I have a 15 year old that has his driver’s permit.

Pray for me. And he now drives me to his school. And last week he had exams and we were driving to his school and he had his phone hooked up to the map and we were listening to a podcast.

It was a man and a woman and they were discussing this material that he needed to know for his exam. And I was like, what in the world is this? What are we listening to? And he said, dad, I took screenshots, I took pictures of the pages of my book, and then I uploaded the study guides that our teacher gave us into Notebook and asked it to create a podcast. And in two minutes time it took all of that information and made a real life podcast.

And I was like, I felt so old in that moment. Where did you learn about this? Is this what it’s come to? What’s next? Like how can we get any more advanced? Now kids, remember I told you I need you kids. What is the number one social media app that kids use in the United States and all over the world? It’s the leader.

Which, what is it? It is not TikTok. It is YouTube. See how loud they are? Because they love YouTube.

And just a few weeks ago my son started, my 12 year old, this is my other son, started his own YouTube channel. And it’s called Brady on the Burner if you want to follow him. Kids, I want you to watch this 30 second video.

You impressed? He’s here. He’s right here in the front row. You’re going to be impressed in a moment because he just started this and one of his 30 second videos has 43,000 views.

Can I just tell you that we have a whole social media team here at the church communication team and they take clips of our sermons and they put them out on all the social media platforms and there isn’t a preacher or a pastor here that has received 43,000 views on any of our videos. And we’re preaching Jesus. Why wouldn’t people want to hear the greatest message that they could ever hear? And this is all just happening in my life in real time in the last few months.

And what happens is as we get to a moment like today, Christmas Eve, on the verge of what we celebrate historically as Christmas, and so often depending on where you come from, depending on your background and your past and your view of the world, we often ask ourselves, well is all of this even real? I mean we like the story. Who doesn’t like the story of a baby in a manger and you got these poor parents and they had to make this crazy trip and she was pregnant and then there was these angels in the sky and there’s these shepherds that came and these wise men came later. I mean everybody loves the story of Christmas because it’s so innocent and it’s just so humbling to read.

But where are you at today? Do you actually believe that this story is real? Do you actually believe that Jesus is who he says that he is? One of the things that I did this week is I actually went to chatGBT and I typed in, can you please give me the image from 2,000 years ago of the very first manger scene? And this is the very first picture that popped up when I did it. Aren’t you glad that we have the technology we can go back 2,000 years and get the actual picture of the first manger scene? Look how beautiful this is. Thank God Mary had time to go to the salon and get her hair curled.

Thank God she went and got her hair and her nails and her makeup. I mean everything about her is glowing and perfect. I mean just look at this picture.

And this is what happens is we get images in our head and it’s so easy to be, you know, come to the conclusion that maybe this isn’t true. Maybe this is just all made up. Maybe it’s just make-believe.

Now when Christianity first started, they didn’t have a Bible. Everything was through oral tradition and so they would go around town to town and village by village and they would recount what it was that Jesus did with his time on earth. We’re blessed that we live in a day and age when we do have the Bible.

And if this is new to you, this is a collection of writings. There’s 66 different books, 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament. And if you look at the New Testament, it talks about Jesus in the first four books.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We call them the Gospels. And what’s intriguing is if you want to dig in and learn more about the birth of Jesus, you actually have to go to Matthew and Luke.

Matthew tells us about Joseph, Jesus’ dad, and the wise men. You have to go to Luke to learn about Mary, his mother, and the shepherds and the angels. And when you take those two and you combine them and you meld them together, you kind of get the whole Christmas story.

Well one of the things that we’re going to do this Christmas is we’re going to look at John’s account. And John’s account is very fascinating because it’s not like the other three. You have to know this.

When John wrote his Gospel, he wrote it anywhere from 20 to 30 years after Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And so he knew people had access to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And because of that, 90% of what John has written is unique to his Gospel.

And he’s going to give us a whole different look at the Christmas account. And what I love about John is the poetic way in which he brings this to our attention. And this is a sample of the way that we do church here at Shepherds Gate, which is really our heart’s desires for you to come back in January.

Because what we’re going to do is we’re going to walk through some scripture together because we believe as a church God speaks to us through his Word. And so this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to go to the very first chapter, the very first verse, and look at what it says.

John tells us this, that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made.

Without him nothing was made that has been made. And so what John is doing through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as he’s writing this is he goes all the way back to the first book of the Bible, Genesis. And Genesis 1.1 says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

He’s inserting this word, Word, in there, but the word, Word, actually means Jesus. And what he is saying when he says Jesus is with God and was God is he is telling us that Jesus is a distinct person separate from God the Father. So God did not create Jesus.

Jesus has existed more than 2,000 years. In fact, Jesus was there before the foundation of the world. He was there before the world was created.

He was also present as the world was being created. He is fully God, and he is always, and he is also eternal. And sometimes it’s really hard for us to wrap our minds around because of the reality in the world that we live in, but this is what John is telling us.

Now look at what he says next. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. Jesus is for everyone.

This is why when we sang Hark the Herald Angels Sing, we sang life, light and life to all he brings. And then he tells us the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. This true light, Jesus, gives this light to everyone.

Now, if you go to Matthew and you look at his account, and you look at the interaction of the angel in Joseph’s dream, very specific what Matthew tells us. He tells Joseph that you are to take Mary as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. This is the third person of the Trinity.

She’s going to give birth to a son. You’re to call him Jesus, and here is the crux of it. This is the most important phrase in this whole thing.

He will save his people from their sins. Who else would have the ability to save people from their sins? Joseph, hearing this, knows that this is the promised Messiah that people have been waiting for. Go over to Luke’s account, and we find an angel actually talking to Mary, and he says the same thing to her.

This person that’s inside of you because of the power of the Holy Spirit has overshadowed you, he will be called the Son of the Most High. He connects Jesus back to God the Father, and then he ends by saying this, his kingdom will never end. This is it.

This is the Messiah, the Savior of the world. There is no one that will come after Jesus. Jesus is the final person for this earth, and redeeming this earth, and God redeeming you and I back to himself.

Now hold on to that for a moment, because we’re going to go to John 1.14, and if you don’t know John 1.14, I would encourage you to memorize this verse. Parents in the room, if you have kids, even if you have college kids, two things. Tomorrow, before you open a single present, I encourage you to read Luke chapter 2. It won’t take you that long at all.

Then go and read John 1.14, because this verse is John’s Christmas verse. This is what John says. He tells us the word, Jesus, became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

He points back to the reality of what Matthew and Luke have said, and he validates that Jesus was actually born. He’s divine, and that he took on human flesh for you and for me. Now, look at what he does next.

This is so cool. It says, we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son. There’s nobody else who came from the Father.

And what is he doing in this verse? He’s telling us that he’s an eyewitness, that he has seen Jesus. And if you read the scriptures, you find out that the first time that John crossed paths with Jesus was with another John named John the Baptist. You see, at this point, John had been following around John the Baptist, and when Jesus shows up on the scene, John the Baptist points his finger and says, there’s the promised Messiah.

John is so moved that he starts following Jesus. It was later on that Jesus actually called him as one of his official disciples. So the guy writing this, he’s older in age, and he’s telling us exactly what has happened.

That he spent three years with Jesus. He heard Jesus teach. He saw Jesus perform miracles.

He saw the crowds. He was part of everything that Jesus did with his earthly ministry on this earth. He was there in the upper room.

He was there in the garden. He was there when Jesus stretched out his arms and the sins of the world, your sins and my sins, were placed upon Jesus’ body, validating what is said in Matthew. And the reason that we know this is because when Jesus is hanging on the cross, he looks down at John, and he tells John specifically to take care of his mother Mary, which means John had access to Mary.

And so here you have this disciple later on in his life validating the entire Christmas account and telling us that it’s trustworthy and that it’s true and that you can put your faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Not only so, but here’s the reason he came. He came to offer grace and, oh look at what it says, truth.

And the way that he offers us his grace is by hanging on the cross and uttering the words, it is finished. And in that moment there is absolutely nothing that you or I could do to earn our salvation. See sometimes people mix this up in the Christian faith and they think they have to go to church or they have to volunteer or they have to give x amount of dollars or they have to, you know, have this checklist or these requirements or you have to stop sinning.

None of those things are true. None of those things equal the gospel or grace. We can do absolutely nothing to earn God’s favor or grace.

He’s already done it all for us. That’s the beautiful part of the gospel. But I want you to see what else John tells us in this text.

He says that in this world, the world that was made through him, there were those that refused to receive him. People that heard him teach, people that heard him say and confess that he was the Messiah, even people that saw him perform miracles that rejected him, people that actually set out to kill him. Likewise, John also tells us that those who did receive his message, who put their faith in him, who believed in his name, they actually became children of God through Jesus Christ.

And this is what you got to hone in on this verse. It says, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but it is all because of the will of God. Nobody here today is here on accident.

You are not here as the result of somebody else. God may have used two human beings to come together to create you, but the only reason that you have breath in your lungs and that you are within the sound of my voice and you are alive in 2025 is because God wanted you on this planet. God created you.

He loves you. He knows every single thing about you. He knows everything that you’ve been through in 2025.

And I know some of you have been through really hard times. Some of you have faced mountains that seem insurmountable. Some of you have maybe even pushed God away because you’re mad or you’re angry at him because maybe something came into your life or a diagnosis or you’ve lost a loved one or life wasn’t fair to you.

And I want you to know I understand that. We deal with this all the time here at Shepherd’s Gate with the families that call this place home. But even more than that, God knows that.

God sees you and he loves you and he wants nothing more than to take and wrap his loving arms around you and to give you a peace that passes our human understanding, a peace that only he can give you today. And this is what’s so incredible about the Christmas message. This is what’s so difficult sometimes.

As we approach the Christmas season, as this last year, I actually had the privilege of celebrating 25 years in ministry. 21 of those 25 years have been spent here at Shepherd’s Gate. And wouldn’t you know that I have lost all of my hair these last 25 years.

But I’ve been humbled and blessed that I’ve been able to stand here multiple times on Christmas and Easter and for multiple services and proclaim the gospel. But the thing that always just grinds me, the thing that just I can’t figure out is why do some people receive Jesus and others refuse to acknowledge that he is the one true God? There is no other religion on the planet that offers grace and mercy. That there is nothing that you can do.

Every other religion, do the research, is merit-based. You have to work. You have to pray this way or that way.

You have to do these things. Christianity and believing in Jesus Christ is the only religion where Jesus has already done everything for you and for me. And that we have these sacred texts of these guys who were eyewitnesses.

And as adults, they point back and say this is trustworthy and this is true. See when you strip everything away, the trees and the lights and the presents and the songs and the productions and the plays and everything else that we’re so often inundated with and associated with this holiday, is it comes back to this one simple thing. That you hear the gospel, the pure gospel message.

And I want you to hear these words that were written down for us. That were handed down over thousands of years. That we could proclaim this in 2025.

Because this is what the angels declared to the shepherds. That today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah and he is the King of kings and Lord of lords.

That is the gospel. And that is God speaking to you using me as the vessel of sharing the gospel with you today. And here’s the remarkable part.

Again, if you think that you’re not worthy or you have too much sin in your life, there’s no way that God would ever accept you. You’ve been out of church or this or that. Listen to me.

This message went to the most despised people group at the time. The shepherds were looked down upon. They couldn’t even go in their own temple to worship.

Nobody wanted to associate with them. And the God of the universe, the God that created every human being, chose to go to these guys first to declare that the Messiah had been born. And if that’s the case, then that means the gospel is for every single one of us, man, woman, and child within this room.

Amen. And here’s what the early church picked up on. Here’s what the early church would do is every single time they gathered, they would say these words that today is the day of salvation.

And when I think about the world that we live in, now is this population that we have is billions of people and close to two and a half billion people on this planet have put their faith in Jesus. They believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. And churches all over the world are packed out during this time.

But yet you are here for a purpose and a reason that absolutely nobody is here today within the sound of my voice on accident. Because again, God wants you to know how much you are loved and valued by him and that he knows you and he sees you and he desperately wants to have a relationship with you. So please hear it one more time today.

Jesus came into the world so that you would know the truth. He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one goes to God the Father unless through Jesus Christ.

Those are his words. And this Jesus was with God and he was God and he took on human flesh for you and for me. That that baby grew to be a toddler who grew to become a teenager, who grew to become an adult because his ultimate mission from God the Father was to hang on that cross.

But thanks be to God that didn’t stop there. It went to the tomb and he stood out and stood and took that first step out of that tomb for you and for me. Here’s the great news.

The cross is empty. The tomb is empty. Jesus sits at right hand of God the Father and he’s just waiting for the instructions of when he will come and gather his believers once and for all and we will spend all eternity with him.

Praise be to God. And that’s our heart’s desire for you today. Amen.

Will you bow your heads and close your eyes with me this afternoon. Heavenly Father you know every human heart in this room. God you know every single struggle that people have been through.

There’s people in here that it’s as real as this last week and their hearts are heavy and they’re grieving because of the heaviness of having to try to navigate life and figure out life this side of eternity. So God we pray that you would just shower them now even in this moment with your grace and your mercy. Their heads bowed and our eyes closed.

The reason we close our eyes is because this is your opportunity with God. Talk to him. Say whatever it is you have on your heart and your mind.

He can take it. He knows it already and he wants to hear from you. The reason we bow our heads is because it puts us in a posture of humility and we acknowledge with our heads bowed that he is the creator and that we’re the creation.

That he is the savior and we’re the sinners. But thanks be to God as we humble ourselves and admit that we’re the sinners. He takes our sins and he parts them as far as the east is from the west and he remembers them no more.

So that every single person within the sound of my voice can leave here today as forgiven redeemed children of God. And so Heavenly Father we ask that you would do your work in this place as the Holy Spirit is stirring hearts and lives. We love you.

We thank you for what it is and the incredible gift that you have given us through your son Jesus Christ. Who was born and he died and he rose again in order that we may have eternal life. We love you and we thank you for the incredible gift that you have given us through your son.

It’s in all these things we pray in your precious and holy name. Amen. Amen.