Christmas is so much bigger than a baby in a manger. Tune in this week to learn about the cosmic plan of God that is revealed in Christmas and how God was ALWAYS coming after you! Love what’s happening at Harmony? Help us advance the Kingdom, support our online ministry (harmonychurch.cc/give). Got kids? Check out Harmony Kids online (updated weekly) https://www.harmonychurch.cc/harmony-kids-online/!——————-
Sermon Notes Slide Key:
- Sermons always start with “OPENING ILLUSTRATION:” and end with “CLOSING ILLUSTRATION:”
- Red = Scripture slides (reflect formatting of scripture on slides, i.e. – underlines, bold, etc.)
- All scriptures are NIV unless otherwise noted
- Bold = Slide text
- “b” or “B” on a line by itself = Slide break/New slide
- Bold ALL CAPS WORDS = heading to be ignored
- [some text] = programming notes to be paid attention to
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SCENES TO FILM:
- The fall (intro)
- The cosmic Christmas
- Dramatic reading of revelation 12
- Robby fighting with GI Joes, dragons and Barbie “pew pew”
- Mouse trap game me talking from behind a table
- Slow motion of the mouse trap game running the course
- Close up of the cross stopping the trap
- Closer/Invitation
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OPENING:The cosmic story of ChristmasYou can’t understand it, really, without understanding the whole story…
We have to go back to the very beginning. -you know the story, right, a serpent a woman and a man
The serpent tempts this nice couple – God had told them they could eat from any tree in the Garden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The serpent temps Adam and Eve, these first humans to eat of the fruit.
This is the pivotal moment. This is where you wish there were a do over. Adam and Eve, in this moment choose between knowing God and knowing good and evil, and they choose to leave God behind…
And you have probably heard the rest, right? Sin and death enter into the world.
Every injustice that has been propagated on the human race, death itself exists because of this moment…
Think about it for a second. Imagine some of the worst moments of your life…-The death of your fiancé from cancer-The divorce of your parents and how it wrecked you-How you are self-conscious about your appearance even now because of those whispers you’ve heard behind your back through out the years.
All of that and so much more have been stained and corrupted by sin. There is not one area of your life that is free from the corruption of sin.
And it is in this tragic scene in the Garden of Eden where man walked with God
That God gives the verdict…
You might know the scene.God is walking in the garden in the cool of the dayGod finds the man and woman and He delivers the consequences of their sin…
But before He does that, God puts a curse on the serpent
Genesis 3:14-1514 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,“Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
This is the first messianic prophecy in the bible
There is more going on here than just God saying to a lizard, you’re not gonna have legs and you’ll be a snake now.
This entity that was speaking and talking to Eve is the embodiment of Satan in the scriptures – the devil – he is the one who leads people astray.
Jesus said Satan was the father of lies and that Satan comes to steal kill and destroy
When God says he is going to put enmity between the woman and the serpent, it’s not about women hating snakes.
The oxford dictionary says the word enmity means “the state or feeling of being actively opposed or hostile to someone or something.”
This is not hating snakes – this is something much greater…
Actually this is the first prophecy about the coming savior who would reconcile the Garden of Eden for us…
He would come and though His heel got struck, he would crush the head of the serpent.
He would restore humanity back to a right relationship with God…
[Scene 2]
It is this backdrop of the Garden of Eden that we read the Christmas story in Revelation…
ILLUSTRATION:If you’ve ever been in a play, then you know that while everything is going on out front there is a whole other set of things going on behind the scenes. People moving around, getting ready for their next scene props being set up and put out, people changing into costumes…
What I’m about to take you to is the behind the scenes of Christmas…
You’re familiar with the donkeys, wise men, virgins giving birth… All very spectacular stuff, but what you might not be as familiar with is what was going on in the spiritual realm – in the cosmic…
Because while everything was all “silent night” in the physical it was “nightmare on elm street” in the spiritual realm
Let’s go in and look…I want you to pay attention to the woman and the serpent…
[Cut to reading of Revelation 12:1-17]
Revelation 12:1-17A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.”[a] And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. 6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.
ILLUSTRATION:I was there when each of my children were born…When they did the C-section for my last three, I even asked if I could watch 🙂
There were joyous moments, there were scary moments. But there were never dragon gonna eat my baby moments!
This is terrifying stuff…
The passage tells this story of this epic battle, I wish we had a huge budget because we would show you what it looked like, instead we’ve got this…
[cut to quick scene of Robby with some GI Joes going “pew pew” as they shoot each other and fly around]
Needless to say, our special effects department isn’t what we wished!
But you get the picture, don’t you? This… is… terrifying…
This is what’s happening in the spiritual realmYou know the story from the front end, right? Rulers ordering the slaughter of babies, a family escaping to Egypt…
All of this is happening so that dysfunction inside of me and of you can be dealt with…
The cradle @ Christmas is all so Jesus can get to the cross…
[Final Scene]
[Have the game mouse trap set up… be initiating the trap sequence – have the camera follow the ball as it travels through the sequence]
Christmas started the moment Adam and Eve’s teeth sunk into that fruit. It set off a chain reaction that has been trapping you and me since the beginning of time.
It is a sin that has put us in a prison where we are far from God…
ILLUSTRATION: Have you ever asked the question, “Where is God?” Maybe when…-your fiancé died from cancer-or your parents got divorced-or when people made fun of you
I used to ask God why He wouldn’t just come down and fix it all…
And then it hit me…He did… I just don’t happen to live in the period of history when He came down…
He came down to rescue me from the trap of sin. To stop it’s deadly consequences in my life and to let me know God again…
This is what Christmas is really all about!
There was a part of that passage I left off from Revelation 12 – you know the sci-fi story
Speaking of how the followers of Jesus triumphed over the serpent it says…Revelation 12:11They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
This Christmas remember – the battle is real, but the battle has already been won!
Jesus died to set you free and that changes everything!
[end with the cross stopping the mouse trap from falling and trapping them – cut video]
[Closer/Invitation]
If you have never made a decision to follow Jesus and be saved from your sins, what are you waiting for? We would love to help you find your way to God. All you have to do is hit that “message” button on Facebook and start a conversation with us. We would love to learn more about you and what God is doing in your life.
