92 101 Great!

And the story is told in a well-known carol, number 644. The first Noel the angel did say, was to Bethlehem's shepherds in fields as they lay. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel.

And we'll have the ladies singing verse 2. And if we can manage it during this hymn, we'll also receive our offering this evening. That's 644, let's stand to sing. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel.

And we'll have the ladies singing verse 2. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. And we'll have the ladies singing verse 2. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. And we'll have the ladies singing verse 2. And if we can manage it during this hymn, we'll also receive our offering this evening.

Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. And we'll have the ladies singing verse 2. And if we can manage it during this hymn, we'll also receive our offering this evening. That's 644, let's stand to sing.

Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. And we'll have the ladies singing verse 2. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. And we'll have the ladies singing verse 2. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel.

And we'll have the ladies singing verse 2. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. And we'll have the ladies singing verse 2. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. And we'll have the ladies singing verse 2. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel.

And we'll have the ladies singing verse 2. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. We have an opportunity to praise Him now in a modern worshipful song.

It's 1-3-3 in the blue books. If you're sitting in the side galleries, otherwise it'll be coming up on the walls either side. Royal sons of a royal king, made to worship, made to praise.

Kings and priests to the king of kings, made to worship him. Let's hear the melody played through once, then we'll sing it through a couple of times. Let's stand up, shall we? Royal sons of a royal king, made to worship, made to praise.

Kings and priests to the king of kings, made to worship him. His face and blood, for all he brought with him. Express thanks to Tim and Sue who put the worship program together this evening, and indeed to all the members of the choir, our instrumentalists, and all the ladies and men too who spent an awful amount of time making this sanctuary look so Christmassy.

So many things that go on here at the Tab and I never get more disillusioned than when people refer to me as the minister of the church, as though the ministry is all locked up in what I do. It's not. It's very, very much shared by so many people, including, as I say, my good brother Tim.

So we're grateful. We're grateful to you folks who've come along, some of you who are regular Tab members and a regular part of our Sunday evening family. And even if that doesn't describe you and you're new here, we're hoping that something of the newness may now have worn off and that you'll feel part of us later on this evening.

We want to have the opportunity of meeting you and serving you with coffee and tea and mince pies and what have you. But wherever you came from and whatever your circumstances in life, whether you're Worthingites or not, we're so glad to be able to wish you a very happy and a very Christ-filled Christmas. There's something very remarkable about the Christmas season, something that's really quite wonderful, and it's encapsulated actually in one of the verses of Scripture which I've had typed out in our notes and news, but I can't believe that there were sufficient coffees available for everyone here this evening to have received one.

So let me read to you from the Gospel of Luke in the first chapter. And there we find in the 31st verse the words of Gabriel who announced to Mary what would shortly happen to her body and what would be her great privilege in life. He says, You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. Now that prediction was put into a song by Mary. She became the first authoress in the Christian church, contributing a hymn which we sometimes sing here at the Tab, the great Magnificat.

And speaking of herself and the extraordinary situation in which she now finds herself, she rightly and humbly says, From now on all generations will call me blessed. Verse 49, For the Mighty One has done great things for me. Holy is His name.

He shall be great. He has done great things for me. That adjective is descriptive not only of our beloved Lord, but also it's descriptive of what He can do for the likes of you and me.

How do you respond to grandeur? Sometimes when traveling in a plane, I wake in the early hours of the morning because I can never sleep in the wretched things. I see the sun rising. Generally my fellow passengers are asleep, so they wouldn't really appreciate any comments from me.

And actually the scene is such that really to speak about it would almost be to despoil it. There is only one thing you can do when nature in all its glory is displaying itself, and that is in quietness, to allow your soul to go out and perhaps to, in your mind, go through the words of that great Russian hymn, Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee, How great thou art. I'm told at the foot of the Eiger, that great mountain in Switzerland, there are some luscious green fields.

And grazing in those fields are the Swiss cows who make themselves heard not only by their mooing, but also by the bells that are fastened around their necks. It has been said of some of the cows that actually they've never benefited from the sight of the Eiger. They spend all their time munching the green grass, so near to majesty, so near to beauty, and yet they never look up, they never see, they're never held spellbound by the creative activity of God.

And, you know, I think sometimes that that becomes a parable of the human race. In the presence of grandeur, the possibility of looking at the wonder of God, we munch the grass, and we do not see that central to the nativity story is the splendor of God coming in amongst us. This woman with child is told that the son that will form within her womb shall be great.

And the possibility of that prediction becoming true at the human and therefore fallible logical level was quite minute. Great when born not in a fashioned crib, but in an animal's manger. Great when, as one person put it, not born in the five-star Hilton Hotel in Jerusalem, but the one-star stable in Bethlehem.

Great when a man whose character has been dramatically portrayed here this evening wishes to have eradicated all the male children under two years of age so that the child that sucks at the breast of Mary has to be secreted out of the land into which he was born and identifies with the millions of homeless, citizenless people of every generation. And yet, when those magi come from the east and they see the child in the stable, they bow their knee. I've told the story before of a somewhat quaint yet lovable Latin master who sometimes would come into the classroom in his public school.

And before he commenced the lesson for that day, before he had the textbooks open, he would bow his head towards his students. And when asked why, his response was this, that it could well be that within his charge was a Plato or an Einstein. He was possibly in the presence of potential greatness.

My Latin master in our school was not quite so romantic in his thoughts about the future of those of us who were in Sheffield Grammar School. But when the magi are in the presence of our beloved Lord, they bow their heads. They get down on their knees.

They are in the presence of greatness. Have you ever seen it yourself? Because of the tinsel and the tradition and the cultural sort of pattern that has woven its way into this time of the year, we've almost gone beyond the possibility of being shocked, even by the traditional carols. Sometimes their language is Victorian, that lo, he abhors not the virgin's womb.

But when you crack that carol and you take out its meaning, you discover in the kernel is this thought, that within the breast of Mary is none other than the great God who flung the stars and the skies into space. The credibility of Christianity is almost written into its incredibility. What do you mean? Well, you see, no man could ever have devised a religion that as at its heart, that the creator God becomes encapsulated in a little cell that grows in a mother's womb and ultimately becomes a crying baby.

I love Martin Luther. I like the carol Away in a Manger. But where does he get scriptural justification of the baby in the manger? No crying he makes.

That little fellow is none other than the great Lord God, He who built the starry skies, He within the manger lies. You see, when you begin to appreciate this aspect of the Christmas story, then you become absolutely flabbergasted. I was saying to the friends who gathered in our coffee house services during the week that there is a verse in the New Testament which really requires a great deal of ingenuity in trying to get it into the English language.

It speaks of the birth of our Lord Jesus and the consequences of that birth. The Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says that God has given to us, the authorized version is, His unspeakable gift. A gift that goes beyond an ability to define.

And the word that I like, but they couldn't have put it into the authorized version because it hadn't been made up at that particular point, comes straight out of a musical, Mary Poppins, which has the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. If you say that quickly, many times they'll think you've gone charismatic. It's trying to put into words that which is really indescribable.

And that's how Mary and those who were present in the nativity scene evaluate what has happened. He shall be great. Great in his potential.

When that babe becomes a lad of twelve, he holds spellbound the greatest theologians and minds of Judaism. He says in words which seem to be dismissive but are pregnant with meaning. To those who have a thought, when he's scolded by Mary and Joseph, do you not know I must be about my father's business? Within the potential of that little babe is all of godliness and beauty and purity that can ever be fleshed out in terms of a human life.

And that he maintained during the years of his earthly pilgrimage. He becomes a man who can speak to the wind and the wind stops blowing. Who can take bread and fish and cause little kids to go goggle-eyed as the bread multiplies, as the fish is increased and then astonishment follows wonder as the disciples go round the huge crowd and collect baskets full of fragments of food.

And when he's brought to the end of his very short life, he tosses down a challenge the like of which there is not one man born of Adam, one daughter of Eve who dares to put down to this congregation which one of you accuses me of sin? Chuck your mud and see if it sticks. They couldn't because it wouldn't. And when he's done to death on the cross, he dies as sinless as the moment when he's brought out from the womb of Mary.

This is what makes him supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I was reading from a book written by Mother Teresa late last evening. The Lord Jesus is very concerned when he's on earth to ensure that people respond accurately to what he has to say.

I'm very concerned this evening. I can't really tell you, I don't have the words, just the nature of my felt responsibility to make it clear to this congregation that the teaching of Jesus and the challenge of the incarnation and his life and his death and his resurrection and the instructions that flow from Scripture concerning these things have got to be not only understood but acted on. Get these wrong and you could be wrong in eternity.

Mother Teresa, it's not often you find her joking. She talks about a tourist, presumably in India, and he runs out of petrol or at least his car breaks down and he goes to the monastery nearby. He's desperately concerned to conclude his journey and the only thing that they've got that has the semblance of motion is a donkey.

And so he takes the offer of the donkey and uses it. And they give him instructions because the donkey can only understand a few words. Amen, amen, and the donkey stops.

Praise the Lord. And he goes. Well, he clambers on the donkey and the beast moves away.

And he's there for such a long time that he's almost forgotten the words of instruction. And the day becomes very misty. And he suddenly realizes that the donkey is going towards the precipice.

And he can't remember the words. But mercifully, as the two of them get within an inch of the precipice, he shouts, amen, and the donkey stops. And with great relief he says, praise the Lord.

Some instructions you get wrong at your peril. Jesus came in the world to be a great Savior. He also came in the world to offer a great salvation.

How do you journey to the Son? How do you discover the gift that he offers? Well, he will tell you. I have not come into the world to condemn the world, but that through me the world might be saved. Nicodemus, would you enter into eternal life? You must be born again.

What does it mean to be born again, Jesus? Do I have to shrink to some embryo and be planted once more in my mother's womb? Don't be crazy, Nicodemus. If that was the case, then you would only be born with the same disposition, the same potentiality to fail. You must be born of the Spirit.

You must hand your life over to me. You must know the outflow of my cleansing grace. You must know what it is to have your sins forgiven.

And that's what Jesus offered. That's what he came in the world to do. He took upon himself a debt which was not his own in order to pay a debt that we could not render.

He took your sin and my sin into his own body. And when he died on the cross, he's bearing the punishment. He's bearing the penalty.

He becomes the pauper of all time. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus? How though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor. That through his poverty he might enrich others.

Mary, the child within you shall be great. Ah, says Mary, great things God has done for me. You know there's a sense in which we can all be Marys.

For Christ can be born in our hearts. How? Get the amen and the praise of the Lord in the right juxtaposition. In other words, hear very carefully.

Accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal savior. Believe that he died on the cross of Calvary to save you from your sins. Confess your need of him.

A, B, C. Accept, believe, confess. And then you'll have arrived at the place that this evening was skillfully put together at the human level to help you to approach the journey to the Son and via the Son into the presence of Almighty God. Let's bow our heads in prayer.

The Magi came to give, but actually they received far more than they could ever give. Mary made her body available, but actually the Lord God did far more for Mary than she could ever do for him. And the principle applies right now.

He asks you to surrender and to submit. What he promises to give you is so utterly incredible, it's beyond human words to describe. You are in the presence of greatness.

You are in the presence of grandeur. Don't be like brute beasts munching green grass. When you could look up into the heights of the Eiger, when you can look into the face of God and enjoy him now and on into eternity.

Be a man, be a woman, be a thinking person. Say a prayer with me in your mind. Lord God, I confess my need of your Son.

I thank you for sending him into the world for me. I thank you, Lord Jesus, for your life and for your death and for your resurrection. Forgive me the wrong that I have done.

Come into my heart by the empowering of your Spirit. And this festive season, Lord Jesus Christ, be central in my life, in my home, in my future. Father, for all who prayed this prayer, seal the commitment that they have made and enable them to go from this place ultimately, rejoicing in the grandeur of the great salvation which the great Lord Jesus Christ came to bring.

We bless you. We thank you. And all the people of God say, Amen.

The choir are going to sing to us again a piece called The Promise Fulfilled. It all came together, a Bethlehem, all that God had said he would do. And midway through this piece, we're going to join them in singing the great anthem, O Come, All Ye Faithful.

It's 491 in Mission Praise. So please do turn it up. We'll sing the first, second, and third verse of this great hymn translated from the Latin, which perhaps more than any other carol presents something of the greatness of our Lord Jesus Christ and the response of our hearts in worshipping him.

Now, you'll have to keep half an eye on me because at the relevant stage, I'll signal to you to rise. And then please do join in with all of your heart as well as all of your voice as we bring this evening to a climax of praise to our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet his promise he has given us today Jesus, Lord, the one begotten Son of God, the great I Am God's Creator and Redeemer You who set the countenance green We with joy kneel down before you Fill our love and life to the end We come in celebration God expressed in Trinity Jesus, Savior, incarnation Is the truth that sets us free Now we sing in happy chorus With one voice to honor thee We will repeat throughout the ages It's the song of heavenly angels With angels joyful and triumphant From glory, O glory to Him Come and behold Him Born the King of Angels Light of Son of God Holy Jesus of Nazareth Father, as we pray that we will indeed adore you our great God and our great Savior that you would give to us those that we love and those who live on this troubled planet your blessing, your joy and your peace in our hearts and for these things a very good and happy Christmas Amen you