SUMMARY KEYWORDS

christmas, god, joy, isaiah, jesus, year, life, salvation, celebrate, people, circumstances, israel, elf, christmas cheer, menlo, world, church, sung, buddy, good.

SPEAKER

Phil EuBank

Well, Good Morning, Menlo Church. So glad that you are with us today. Welcome to a really fun and special season of Advent as we anticipate and celebrate the Christmas holiday and, with it - if you're a follower of Jesus - we believe it really reminds us of the coming of Jesus, our Savior for the whole world. A special welcome to all of our campuses in Saratoga, Mountain View, San Mateo, here in Menlo Park and to those of you joining us online, we are so thankful for you. And we hope that your season has already been one filled with hope and peace, even in the first couple of weeks since Thanksgiving.

Now, before we get started, I wanted to take a minute before we begin to update you on some important work that we've been doing this year. And the next steps that likely you've already heard about or read about through an email update that was sent on Friday if you receive those email updates from us. If you don't receive those email updates from us here at Menlo, you can sign up for those email updates at menlo.church. So if that's new information for you, you can grab that. But shortly after I arrived here at Menlo earlier this year, I received communication from a group of survivors, primary and secondary, of abuse that they had experienced while at Menlo decades ago. And while the original group represents abuse from nearly 30 years ago, we wanted to listen and learn from them directly.

Over the course of this year, in partnership with Zero Abuse, it became obvious that restorative justice was the right next step for us and for this group of survivors. It's a process where survivors can be heard by a neutral third party, and healing can take place for them, as well as growth and learning for us. We're beginning that process, and I wanted to let you know where you can learn more and even get involved if you'd like to. You can learn more at menlo.church/rj, and that site, that page will serve as a place where updates will be posted throughout this process.

I know that for some of you, you're wondering why we are doing this after such a long period of time, after decades from when this originally took place. And while I understand that feedback, we also want to create a place where any possible more recent claims of abuse could also be safe to report, as well as honoring the fact that harm was caused even decades ago, and it still needs healing and our church needs to be open and honest in the conversation about it.

I know that for some of you, this is your very first time at a Menlo campus, this is your very first time in the room, and so this is not the way you expected a message to start. But I wanted to begin our time by updating you, being as open as I possibly can be, and letting you know where to go for more information. In a second, I'm going to pray for us in our time together, I'm also going to pray for those survivors that God will use this to bring hope and healing to them. Would you pray with me?

God, thank you so much. Thank you that we do not have to manage the brand of Jesus. It's not about a logo. It's not about a platform, that God, we are ambassadors of peace and hope, and we can trust you. We can trust you when we acknowledge weakness. We can trust you when we acknowledge blame. We can trust you when we acknowledge abuse. And God, I believe that you can work in the midst of that to bring healing and hope, and I pray that you do that; that we would learn and grow as a community, and that the survivors now, even decades later, would find something, God, that I think they can only find in you. And so would you deliver that in the days ahead? For us as a community, as we think about and celebrate Christmas, God, help us to walk through the principle we're about to talk about; that sometimes our circumstances don't line up with the choice to follow you in joy. And I pray, God, that even over the next few minutes, we would live into that tension, and we would walk with you faithfully in the days ahead. It's in Jesus' name. Amen.

Now, over the past few weeks as a Church, we've been in a series that is designed to help us consider more than just our cultural customs of the season, but the deep spiritual truths we find in remembering and celebrating the arrival of Jesus on earth - fully God and fully man – 2,000 years ago. We have been doing this by taking some of the classic movies that we watch each year and connecting them to the greatest story that the world has ever seen. This week, we're looking at a more modern movie than the last couple, and that's the movie Elf, which is a heartwarming movie about a human raised to think he's an elf at the North Pole. Hilarity ensues, right?

Now, there is a really powerful transition that we watch happen in Buddy the Elf throughout the course of this movie that I think illustrates a very important lesson about joy, that actually comes from the Christmas Story. And it's a theme of the Advent season, this season of celebration and anticipation that the church around the world has been celebrating for centuries.

The idea is this: that joy - unlike the way we think about it in our modern moment - joy is a condition of our heart, not our circumstances. As easy as it is to say, "Well, you don't know what's going on in my life Phil, did you see the headlines recently? Were you around 10 seconds ago when you were just talking about some hard stuff?" These are our circumstances. How can we possibly find joy? And that's exactly the point of what joy at Advent is for. So if we want that kind of joy, that can endure circumstances that we would rather avoid or tragedies that we would do anything to go back and reverse; we have to examine the source of our condition without a doubt. Throughout the history of the church around joy, the key lesson that the church has been walking out, and we'll read about this morning, is that salvation brings joy. That our ultimate joy comes from this deeper understanding and appreciation for why Christmas had to take place at all.

We've been walking through a book in the Hebrew Scriptures, what we often call the Old Testament called Isaiah. And Isaiah is a prophet that God uses to speak to the Jewish people at a time when God would use judgment to call out a righteous remnant, or a small group that he would use eventually to bring Jesus into the world.

I spent a lot of time last week breaking down the context of his ministry and the state that Israel found itself within, and if you missed it, Isaiah knew that what he was saying would not be heard or heeded by his generation or even in his lifetime. He was planting seeds for a tree that he would never sit under, and he knew it.

In the final chapter, the first section of his book, Isaiah finishes his appeal to Jerusalem by including these words: "You will say in that day: 'I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.’ With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.'"

For years, I served in student ministry, helping middle school students, high school students, college students navigate through the challenges of their life and hopefully in the process, learn how to own their faith for the rest of their life. And one of the things that was really easy for me to see and say, that I don't think was always as helpful or welcomed by them was, I would say something to the effect of, "I know you don't believe me right now. I know you think you know better than me. But when you graduate, when you move out, when you get that job, when you take that step personally or professionally, then you will understand, then it will all make sense."

And if you're a parent or a grandparent, I would just tell you, the next generation doesn't love when we say those words to them. It might be true, but it's not helpful because they couldn't always see it. They couldn't always believe that that thing was coming. A lot of times what they needed was just somebody walking with them in the exact moment that they were in, giving them hope for what was coming. Isaiah is promising a group of people within the context of biblical prophecy - what we talked about last week - that there will be a day when they celebrate. They're experiencing pain now, and that there's more pain coming, but there is hope, there is peace, there is joy. Even if they can't see it, they can believe it.

See what can feel so hollow for us this time of year as we think about what happens around Christmas time - especially if you're not a follower of Jesus - is that we don't always connect it to something bigger. We hear things will get better. We hear that we should celebrate and appreciate the season, but we're never told how. We're never told why.

One of the most quoted lines from the movie Elf is a very cute line, and I bet you could finish it for me. The line goes like this: "The best way to spread Christmas cheer..." Let me just give you one more shot at that. Okay? Let’s all wake up. You're here. You can do it. I can hear other campuses more than you. Okay? Finish this line for me: "The best way to spread Christmas cheer…. is singing loud for all to hear.” Was that so hard? You guys got it. Great job. It's a really sweet line in the movie, right? As a matter of fact, it's eventually the thing that powers Santa's sleigh and saves Christmas. And if you're like Phil, spoiler alert, I would say the movie came out 20 years ago. This feels like it's a little bit on you, right?

But we're never told what Christmas cheer is found in, right? Without a theological center of gravity. If all Christmas is, is this holding dish for our nostalgia, it doesn't really help very much, and we feel that. See, there's more to Christmas than just Christmas. Israel had plenty of traditions too, traditions that were supposed to be connected to bigger things, but if they weren't careful, would just be nostalgia for them as well. As a matter of fact, Isaiah, he's referring to some of them even in the verses that we just read. He's talking about something much more powerful than just their memories, much more powerful than just their celebrations. The day that he is referring to when they would pronounce this news is in the future, when Israel sees and recognizes their Messiah, the Savior of the world.

To the reader at the time, the majority interpretation of this passage was that when the Messiah arrived, they would usher in this lasting national success. Even Jesus' own followers just a couple of thousand years ago expected Him to eventually assume an earthly throne. And they were sort of jockeying around who would get which cabinet position, but the ultimate fulfillment was about an eternal kingdom. That's what is in view. This refers to a time after the world has experienced great pain, and God is restoring it to the vision He had always wanted it to be.

Now, not all Jewish people see it that way today. But the picture from Isaiah points to the perfect and permanent Kingdom of Heaven brought to Earth.

The reason this was very good news was that God would save the remnant, even though they didn't deserve it, even though they didn't earn it, they still received it. So when we read that at one point God was angry, and instead He comforted them, it's about the substitutionary nature of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection for you and for me. That God looked at Jesus and saw our sin, so He could look at us and see the righteousness of Jesus. In that, we find the tension of the gospel, the good news that we celebrate at Christmas, especially that just like with Israel, the good news begins by recognizing the bad news that our deserving judgment was taken on by Him, just like Isaiah did. That's where I can honestly get kind of annoyed with movies like "Elf." Because I'm wondering over the course of the movie when Buddy, the elf, is just haphazardly creating destruction everywhere, who is cleaning up after him?

At one point in the movie, they cut down a tree from Central Park to make their Christmas tree in their home, which you should not do. And then Buddy, the elf, is trying to put a star on the tree. So he jumps from the couch to put the star on the tree and destroys the entire house. And then it just goes to the next scene. And I'm like, but he's not going to learn if you don't make him clean up his mess. That's just my editorial comment. I'm watching and wondering who's going to take care of this. I know it's a disease. But I do. I'm the dad, by the way, that has the garbage bag, and as the kids are opening presents, I'm taking the wrapping paper. You can pray for my kids.

But I do know that we can view Christmas through this lens of we're getting away with something. We're getting away with our shortcomings. We're getting away with our failings. But actually, that's not what Christmas represents. We don't get away with them. God took them away and put them on Jesus. That's what Christmas represents. That's worth celebrating. That's what can give us joy beyond our circumstances. If you really take a moment to consider the cosmic freedom forever that you are offered in Jesus, then the rest of the song that Isaiah is quoting, it makes complete sense. And the words they even have some familiar tones to them. "The Lord is my strength and my song, and has become my salvation." They grew to this understanding throughout their history. And words from this song were used at critical moments throughout the history of Israel to mark God's faithfulness. That's the way it was supposed to work. It was sung at points during the period of the Exodus for God's people at the rededication of the temple by the Red Sea after the Jews had been delivered. It was sung in Jerusalem and it will be sung on that day in the future that Isaiah is talking about. There is deep joy found when we realize the magnitude of our salvation.

Maybe that's why Isaiah points to the joy that they will draw out from the wells of salvation. See, for them, the well represented what it would represent to any of us if we were in a desert climate. This was uncommon but deeply necessary. It was this thing you knew the location of; you went to it on a regular basis. It was critical; they would orient their lives around where a local well was. And here Isaiah is saying, "Look, when you are facing challenges and difficulties personally, professionally, maybe you just think about the ones that we face in the world. The well of joy that you will find is the well of your salvation. That you realize no matter how difficult or dark the moment that we are in is, it is not forever. And that's because of Jesus."

In the movie, after Buddy travels to the city to find his dad, he ends up working at a department store, which is getting ready for a guest: Santa. And for Buddy, he has only ever seen the real Santa; he doesn't know that other people dress up like Santa and shop at stores like this. And his level of enthusiasm is next level, right? Like, "Santa! I know him!" You're just wondering. He spends all night decorating the place. And then the guy that's the supervisor is like, "Somebody, somebody's gunning for my job. It's a little too good, you know?" There's this level of enthusiasm and excitement that Buddy has for Christmas. It's contagious.

How about for you? See, I think sometimes at Christmas, especially, our celebration is so big, our calendar is so full, our spending so great, our expectations so overwhelming, that the thing that there's no room for is Jesus. We leave out quiet moments to reflect on His goodness for ourselves personally, and without realizing it, we leave out those quiet, necessary moments of appreciation for that salvation for our family and friends, for those closest to us too. Israel never assumed that the next generation knew the stories of the last one, and we shouldn't either. We have been reminded over and over again ourselves. And we have to remind others: when we remember the salvation that we've been given, we find greater joy in Christmas cheer than Christmas cheer on its own could ever provide, because joy is a condition of our heart, not our circumstances.

See, if salvation brings joy, declaration fuels joy. I know the pressure to not rock the boat around the processes of Christmas and celebrating. But I think that while there's great wisdom in not talking about religion or politics at a holiday meal, we have to be careful that we don't exclude Jesus from our Christmas table. That as thoughtful and wise as we want to be, here's the thing: if we spend time leaning in, we have to be careful about an overcorrection in a politically correct culture. We should never let someone's approval of us be more important than God's approval of us. It doesn't mean that we should be overly weird or socially off-putting. But it means that if we really savor the good news of the salvation that we have received or that has been offered to us, it's going to leak; it's going to come out in our conversations and in our life and in the way we celebrate Christmas, and that's okay. Jesus highlights the source of our words this way. He says, "The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." So just use that backwards. What are you talking about this Christmas? What are you thankful for? If someone was watching you and described what you think is important at Christmas based on what you say, what would they diagnose?

Like I said, this was not a new concept for Israel. They knew that God had shown up in miraculous ways over and over again throughout their history. And they built their generational memory around it. Isaiah wanted to make sure that part of what he's including in this song was sampling from that history. He says it this way: "And you will say in that da: “Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth. Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel."

Did you catch that? Now I just want to pull out of this for just a second and note, like I know we're talking about Israel. And there's no way to not think about Israel in the headlines. You just heard the word Zion; maybe you've heard that in present-day circumstances, that oftentimes what we read about in the Bible and what we hear about in the headlines can feel at odds. But I think that they're actually, oftentimes, different ideas—there are things that, while one may inform the other, we can read, understand, and process this and pray for peace in the midst of what's going on in the headlines at the same time, and I think we're supposed to.

What Isaiah highlights here for us is that we should call upon God's name all the time, every day; the name of our salvation. As you make known this incredibly important focus for our lives, which is understandable. For Israel, they are trying to think about the fact that at the time Isaiah is writing, they have lived under constant threat of persecution and destruction for their entire history. But God always wanted them to show the world who He was; He never wanted them to just hide. He never wanted them to just shrivel up as a people.

I had the unique pleasure of growing up with a Jewish mother. And I think some of this was in her blood; she just wanted to share. If you'd had a chance to meet my mom, she would have instantly told you how thankful she was for Jesus. She became a follower of Jesus as her Messiah in her 20s. If you'd had a chance to meet her, she would have talked to you about that near-death experience that her and I had at childbirth that she's so thankful God delivered us from. She would have talked about my challenges growing up and the way that God had delivered me and continued to use my story. And if I was next to her in the conversation, I would have squirmed and felt uncomfortable, right? Because that's what happens when your mom brags about you in front of other people. I think we have lots of reasons to avoid sharing what God has done in and through our lives. But part of what God does for us in this season is He invites us to lower our threshold of gratitude. Look, even if you can't be thankful for everything, can you be thankful for something?

Here's what I think happens for us, especially in the West is, as we get older, our threshold of entitlement and the things we just assume are the bare minimum, that floor just keeps raising up. And so every year, you go, "Well, yeah, of course I have all of this. That's just normal, I’m not gonna thank God for that. Yeah, year like, I've got a house and food to eat and medical care that's incredible. And people that care about me and all these things that I thought were going to take me away - and like, send me down some path that I was desperately hoping wouldn't happen God delivered me from this year. But that's, you know, that's just life."

I'm telling you, I think there's something so much deeper when we allow that floor to come back down, and we thank God for all of it. See, this innocent sense of wonder and gratitude from Buddy, the elf, is on prominent display at one point as he's exploring the city. And he walks into this little diner and on the side of the diner, there's a sign that says, "World's best cup of coffee." And he takes it seriously. So he walks in and goes, "Congratulations, like you guys did it." And it's just a bunch of very unmotivated hourly workers behind the counter, like, "I don't know what you're talking about," right? But we find ourselves way too sophisticated for that, don't we?

We don't thank God for healing us. We thank the doctors; we thank medicine, and we should, but not on their own. We don't thank God for our job, our home, our family; we thank our hard work, we thank our family of origin, we thank the nation we live in, and we should, but not on their own. Jesus' half-brother, James, gives us an important reminder that has to do with this. He says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." Even if you're not a follower of Jesus, I'm telling you every good thing in your life is because of the grace of God for your life.

The skill of the doctor, the minds in our heads, the will to keep going, the moment we live in human history, all came from God. Think of how much in your life you had no control over it, and yet God used all of it to bring you today, even the difficult things. In a season that revolves around gifts, James is telling us that every single good and perfect gift that we receive is ultimately from God. And he should get credit from us, not just in our journal, but along our journey in the lives and spaces and places that we get to experience Christmas this year.

I've shared this already, but we are so good at recognizing this around Thanksgiving - that what God would have us do all of Advent, what God would have us do that reminds us that our circumstances are not ultimate, which is to live with gratitude all the time. - We're so good at it for such a small window of time.

And within hours we go from "I'm so thankful for" to "I must have even more." And I'm telling you, it would do us so much good, so much good to just resist that urge, resist that urge. Let the floor go down, thank God for all of it. Here's my promise to you: If you spend time this Advent season reflecting on the goodness of God in your salvation and sharing the faithfulness of God with the next generation, even in circumstances you wish weren't, you will experience greater joy. That's when joy becomes a condition of our heart, not just our circumstances. It's when we can see it beyond the immediate. When we tell other people about God's joyous hope and help in our lives, that it's still true today and it can be true for them too.

I'll give you another way to make this happen. And that is, what's one thing that you could do, that you do out of duty this year, that you could just pause, just for this year, to make space for yourself, for your community, for your family, to spend more time reflecting and centering your holiday around the joy of your salvation and the declaration of God's goodness through your life.

All right, I might get some boos here, kids, sorry. Maybe it's a smaller number of gifts. Maybe it's skipping that party that you don't really want to go to anyway. Maybe it's leaving early. Maybe it's not hosting the cookie exchange. Like Phil, we've done those things for decades, I get it.

Maybe it's not sending out your Christmas card this year. None of these things are bad or wrong, but any of them can be if they pull us from the joy that we are really meant to experience this time of the year. Look, the cruise control of the Advent season is so strong. And before I say Amen in a few minutes, you will be tempted to go, "That was a sweet thought," and then just keep going on a schedule that by the end of Christmas, you will be more exhausted than when you started the month. And I'm telling you, that's not why Jesus came to die for you.

Sometimes, during this time of the year, we sacrifice our joy because we have surrendered our boundaries. I'll be honest with you, this is my first Christmas season at Menlo and I have an invitation to a Christmas event or celebration of some kind every morning, every noon, and every night through Christmas. So, if you come up to me later, and you're like, "I have a thing this week, can you come to it?" I'm going to say no. I might say like, email me, but I'm really saying no, you should just know that. Look, I can't physically say yes to all of them. And if I'm going to savor the season, myself and for our family, it's going to take setting some boundaries, and some of those boundaries are going to disappoint some of you, but what's the alternative? We either disappoint others because of their unsustainable expectations of us, or we disappoint ourselves because we have let those expectations control us. Christmas is so important; it's too important to let that happen. The reminders it contains are so important to propel us into a new year, so don't sacrifice them on the altar of people-pleasing.

The late great author and Pastor Tim Keller, he put it this way, he said, "Christmas means not just hope for the world, despite all its unending problems, but hope for you and me, despite all our unending failings.” Christmas does not make the assumption that at some point in the past, you got it right and now you're perfect. Christmas reminds us that that point will never exist this side of Heaven. And because of Jesus, that's really good news. It's not just for everybody; it's for anybody, and it's for you. And if at some point you felt you graduated from that good news at Christmas, let this be your remedial course to be reminded that we never graduated from it. We graduate into it.

In Buddy, the elf language, he said it this way, "There's room for everybody on the nice list." See, the message of Jesus is the message of Christmas. And it's the powerful truth that Jesus' offer of salvation is the most inclusive, exclusive claim of all time. Can I tell you a secret? While there's room for everybody on the nice list, none of us deserve to be on it. That without the good news of Jesus, we're all on the naughty list. It’s because God loves us so much that even though we have collectively and individually rebelled against Him and continue to do so, He chose to send His son as a baby to live a perfect life that we couldn't, to die a death that we all deserved, and to come back from the dead, that our greatest gift would be Him forever.

Everything you experience at Christmas, as incredible as it is, is a shadow of what we ultimately celebrate.

No matter the gifts that you are hoping are waiting for under the tree, that temporary happiness you hope to gain is just temporary. In the best-case scenario, that gift that you get is thoughtful, and you enjoy it until next Christmas - still, the next wishlist, the next temporary gift, and especially the really good temporary gifts. Here's what they remind you of: they remind you of the greatest gift. They remind you of eternity.

If this Christmas is one that you want to be different, where you want to end the month with more joy than you started, you want to end the month with more hope than when you started and you go “Phil you don't know what's waiting for me in January,” it sounds like you need Advent to make a spiritual difference in your life. Even if you've never been a person of faith, take the next couple of weeks and change a few habits and routines. Buddy the elf demonstrated joy through curiosity, through wonder, through hopefulness, through optimism. But I'm just telling you, without margin, we don't do that stuff. Without margin, instead of choosing those things, we choose judgment. We choose cynicism. We choose bitterness. And around this time of the year, it's often because we lack the boundaries to say no. We lack the intentionality to avoid the cruise control of our culture to consumerism.

And instead, being able to say, "God, there are challenges around the world; there are challenges in my world and circumstances. And God, I want to experience the joy that's bigger than all of it. Because as difficult as the day is, it does not get the final say, not in my life, not in the world, now for eternity."

So for you this Christmas, Menlo, how will you find ways to let God show you just how much He loves you? Just how great an extent He went 2,000 years ago to win you back. Let me pray that you might find that today.

God, thank you. Thank you for the incredible joy that it is when we take time, even right now, for some of us, God, this will be the most restful, not getting hit with things to do or respond to time in our week. And God, I pray that we would steward that well, that the deposit your word has made in us over these last few minutes, that God, you would use that to grow and move us towards a greater appreciation in the days to come. I pray that this wouldn't just be these few minutes we get to share here, but that there will be something even bigger, even greater in the days ahead. God, give us a joy that transcends our circumstances, for your glory and in your name. Amen.

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