{"id":402,"date":"2006-12-26T22:07:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-26T22:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2006\/12\/26\/on-christmas-eve-preaching-sermon-summaries-122406\/"},"modified":"2006-12-26T22:07:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-26T22:07:00","slug":"on-christmas-eve-preaching-sermon-summaries-122406","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2006\/12\/26\/on-christmas-eve-preaching-sermon-summaries-122406\/","title":{"rendered":"on Christmas eve preaching (Sermon Summaries 12.24.06)"},"content":{"rendered":"
Our messages this Sunday were intended to be a trio of my two boys and myself, however Number One Son and his fiancee and their ride to the airport in Greenville all managed to oversleep and miss their plane Saturday AM. So they flew standby, and I rode the ferry across the pond in hopes to catch them late Saturday evening and then make it home in time for our services. Alas, it was not to be! They were stuck in Dallas Fort Worth overnight and I had to cobble together sermon #3 when I got back.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, we had a great day in the service of the Lord.<\/p>\n
My 18 year old Rory preached the morning message on the Christmas Story, Luke 2.1-20. He is a gifted speaker and one semester of BJU freshman speech has served to polish his abilities even more. We were very grateful for his efforts. The title of his message was “Let Us Now Go and See<\/a>” with this proposition: “Our pastor was saying last week, that the only two responses to the work of God are doubt or faith. I hope you can see from this passage that true faith is the only right response to the extraordinary work of God.” Rory focused on the responses to the Christmas story. The crowd ‘wondered’, which he called ‘Curious Unbelief’. He compared that to the response of the world today. If they pay any attention to the Christmas story, it is with a sentimental interest in the ‘wrapping’, but no real interest in the contents. It is put away each year for next year, to be put on display again. Mary ‘pondered’, that is, she had ‘Meditative Faith’. She weighed out what she saw and experienced and let its truth and its implications fill her heart and soul over the years she followed her Messiah-Son. The shepherds ‘glorified’, that is, they had ‘Expressive Faith’, a response to the message of Christmas that displayed the work of God to all who would listen. Both the meditation of Mary and the glorification of the shepherds are the appropriate faith responses that men need to have towards the great gift of God’s son.<\/p>\n