Connect Christmas Celebration
A big welcome to our guests today. It’s lovely to have you with us and we hope to host you well. Today we will be celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ with you in fun and creative ways. Please also stay for our hangi and shared lunch after the service.
Before time as we know it, the three persons of God (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), lovingly planned that Christ would come to save the world from the destructive power of sin. The Son of God limited Himself as God and came in the form of a little baby (John 1:1 and 1:14). Why a baby? Why not with power and might as a warrior? Its because Christ came to show the world a different way of being; a way of peace, love, and forgiveness, in relationship with Him as our Creator. Sin had corrupted our world, and still does today, with greedy people seeking power and control and rejecting God.
Jesus was baptised at age 30, and the Holy Spirit descended on Him, to show symbolically that we must die to sin and be raised in newness of life to enter the Kingdom of God (Luke 3:21-23). Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God, and healed people of all diseases and afflictions, teaching His followers to do likewise (all 4 Gospels tell of this). That’s why we run “Breaking Strongholds,” a healing and deliverance ministry here at Connect. Through Jesus’ ministry people who hated each other before came together in love, such as Jew and Gentile (non-Jews). We so need this in our world today.
But Christ’s ultimate purpose for giving up His throne in Heaven and coming to earth to become one of us, was to save His beloved humanity from Satan’s control over us. Christ’s death on the cross was planned by God. At the cross He took upon Himself the sin; past, present, and future, of every human throughout time. There He put to death the power of sin, which is physical and spiritual death. The Father and the Holy Spirit then raised Christ back to life, conquering death. He appeared to many people for 40 days and then ascended to Heaven, back to His throne. From here He sent the Holy Spirit to live in any human who asks God to forgive them of their sin and welcomes Christ into their heart by faith.
During the month of December, we look back to the First Coming of Christ, around 4 – 6BC (The Bible does not give exact dates), thankful that through faith we stand justified and righteous before God because Christ lives in us by His Spirit, who counsels and reveals Kingdom things to us every day. And we look forward to the Second Coming of Christ, when He will return with the angels, and the dead in Christ, to judge the living and the dead, and to raise believers to eternal life in a new Heaven and a new earth. All will have new immortal bodies. This is the hope that all humans can have today if they choose to accept Jesus Christ into their life through faith.
If you have any questions at all about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ I am happy to meet with you. May God bless your life with peace, love, joy, and hope this Christmas season.
About Pastor Julie
I’m passionate about the church – building believers up in their faith, to be all God intended them to be; and I’m passionate about sharing the love and hope of Jesus with people who don’t know Him yet.