Worship
Please join us for Traditional Service on Sundays at 1:00 PM.
FCCC has resumed “in-church” services at 1:00 PM in the sanctuary on Sunday. If you can’t attend the “in-church” service you can still listen to the “in-church” service on the Conference Call Audio Service (909-318-7828) or watch live on your computer or smartphone by clicking on the link below.
(youtube.com/channel/UCNqojf_N467zRP66rpfvUAQ/live)
Also, the midweek Conference Call Audio Service continues every Wednesday at 10 a.m. Dial-in number: 909-318-7828. Please join us!
We are meeting at Abiding Presence Lutheran Church, 1550 Walton Blvd., Rochester Hills, Mi,48309
Pastor Tom Sayers
586-703-6249
tommsayers@yahoo.com
Message for the 3rd Sunday of Advent December 12, 2021
“Love Came Down At Christmas!”
Faith Community Christian Church
Pastor Tom
Well, here we are, still talking about John & Jesus.
Whatever we might accuse John of, he wasn’t dull. He told it simply. In ordinary sentences. Everyone could understand what he was talking about. Asked what they were to do John said:
“To those who had two coats, share one with someone who had none. Those who had plenty of food were invited to do the same”. People were to be kind and compassionate to one another.
That’s the Christian Gospel in a nutshell!
This is a story that must be told at Christmas. Our lives are filled with love. It begins with love, and it reaches its climax in the manger of Bethlehem.
Sharing is so basically fundamental to our faith that anyone who somehow hasn’t grasped this principle will miss a major thrust of this Advent season. (Remember, we touched on this last week.)
It’s not what you give that’s important, but the sharing spirit of love in which it’s given.
God gave us Jesus, so the very best we can do is share our coats and food with one another.
John the Baptist gathered crowds alongside the river in order to invite them to step into the water, and into a new life.
John gave his newly cleaned out, newly baptized, audience a roadmap for their new relationship with God.
It was not any complex roadway. It was a simple, step-by-step pathway for the Road to Bethlehem. The road to Bethlehem is one we travel every year. But it’s not a super-highway with six smooth lanes of asphalt going whatever way we are headed.
It is a narrow road with many obstacles and potholes. And this is precisely why we need this season of Advent.
Not simply to let us know that there is a diminishing number of shopping days till Christmas.
But for the expected use of this time for reflection, for introspection, for taking spiritual inventory, and, yes, even for change. Ready or not, here He comes…..Are you ready?
Friends Advent is an intentional season of preparedness.
And as we move swiftly through the rituals of the season, let’s not fail to look and to listen.
Not looking and not listening might cause us to miss the point of it all, the Joy of it all.
For children the most difficult part of Christmas is simply waiting for it to come. From Thanksgiving to December 25 seems more like an eternity than a month. Time seems to stand still.
The truth is that, though we don’t like waiting, waiting is a part of living.
It’s perhaps an awkward season, because we would much prefer to dismiss with the preliminaries and get right down to the particulars of the birth of Jesus.
But the message of Advent is that we don’t have permission to rush God’s story. It says to us that for now, we must wait.
How are you waiting for the birth of the Christ child during this Advent season? With a blank stare, or with a surge of exciting anticipation, wanting to know all that you can about it.
Friends, how we wait makes all the difference in the world.
And as we wait we think how completely Jesus experienced what is meant to be human.
Christ understands our problems and our eagerness.
At this Christmas time we need to remind ourselves that love is not measured by the size of a gift. It is best measured by a willingness to sacrifice.
By that measure, love certainly did come down at Christmas!
The celebration of Advent is the celebration of light coming into our dark world. Jesus is the light of the world.
That’s the good news for this third Sunday in Advent. The light that enlightens all humankind has come into the world in the person of the Christ child. Just when the world most needed God’s light, a babe was born in Bethlehem.
Jesus is the light that shined in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. Try as it might the world cannot extinguish Christ’s light.
That light shines in prisons. It shines in hospital rooms and funeral parlors. It shines amidst poverty and heartache and hardship. Nothing can stop it. And the greatest privilege in the world is to share that light with someone else. That’s our job when we leave this sanctuary. Letting the light of Christ shine through us.
Yes Christmas is about an end to loneliness and despair that even our best efforts can’t seem to fix. Christmas is about hope when the stage of life is the darkest.
Christmas is about a future that God has provided for eternity when death appears to be the final word in life.
This afternoon we have heard from the “advance man.” He reminds us that we are the “advance people” of this generation.
Weird Uncle John, who doesn’t seem to fit into the Christmas story, is actually a gift from God.
John is the annoying Salvation Army bell ringing constantly in our ears, reminding us to care for the least of these, the poor, the hopeless, the homeless, the broken hearted. John isthe burnt out bulb that makes the whole strand go out and makes us hunt for the one light that will make the whole strand shine again. John is God’s gift of preparation. The alarm clock voice telling us that the birth of Christ is just around the corner and if we don’t quiet our spirits, focus our hearts, leave the mall and journey out to the wilderness where the manger is located, we’ll miss it.
The birth of this child we celebrate isn’t about presents and trees and stockings and candy canes. The birth of this child is about finding our way back home.
And when Christmas ceases to be a seasonal sentimental story and becomes a living experience, it produces changed lives.
More sensitive, more unselfish and sympathetic, more patient and loving and more forgiving.
I wonder how many folks on Christmas Day will, having ripped off all the ribbons and wrapping paper of their Christmas gifts, still find an emptiness in their soul and spirit that no material gift can ever fill. When the last Christmas card fades away, how many will discover that while the business of the Christmas season disguises their loneliness for a moment, it’s not for long. All the Christmas gifts and cards can’t make up for the lack of Christ’s presence in your journey of life. Christmas teaches us that going home is really understanding that home is our relationship with God and a realization of His purpose for our lives. You don’t have to come home to Christmas “only in your dreams”. You can come home by accepting Jesus Christ.
We’ll Close With This: It’s not Christmas yet. It’s not here yet, but it’s on its way.
But remember this, Christmas comes whenever and wherever there is peace and harmony, tenderness and respect, thoughtfulness and caring in the family. When we love God and when we love our families and our neighbor there is Christmas.
Friend’s maybe the best Christmas gift of all is someone to hold us. Because it’s not what you have. It’s who you have beside you. This sacred season comes along once each year to remind us that “Love Came Down at Christmas,” that God is even now reaching out to us with open arms, and that He wants us to accept His love and to pass it on to others.
It is my prayer that this Christmas season will have an effect on the way that you live your life. That it will bring out the best, not the worst, in you. When you and I care we want to give our best to God. To be the best is to be like Jesus. And do be like Jesus is to have him reborn in our lives.
Ready or not, here He comes.
Are you ready to receive the gift? Amen.
*Reasons for joining the FCCC Choir:
“The collection plate is never passed to the choir.”
“When you forget to do your laundry, the choir robes cover dirty clothes.”
*Things you never hear in church:
“I volunteer to be the permanent Sunday school teacher!”
*Excuses for not attending church:
“The dog ate my offering!”
.Faith Community Christian Church
