Tonight we have some carols to sing and some trivia questions for you and we will be finding out what Christmas is all about from God s Word.

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Gwendolyn Tyler
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1 1 WELCOME/PRAY Good Evening everyone and welcome to our Christmas Carols service here at St. David s Toukley My name is Paul O Rourke and I m the minister here at St. David s Tonight we have some carols to sing and some trivia questions for you and we will be finding out what Christmas is all about from God s Word. During the Carols service we will also be showing you a DVD that our choir has made it s called A Christmas Audition and it s basically HOW NOT TO make a Nativity Play at Christmas You should have received a run sheet for tonight so just sit back and relax and enjoy the evening Before we begin - I m going to commit our time together to God in prayer so let s pray Heavenly Father, we humbly ask that you bless this gathering of your people as we celebrate and remember the birth of our Lord and King and Saviour Jesus Christ. Help us to remember that He is the one who was born to save the world from their sin. Help us to embrace this free gift of love you have given us - in Jesus. Help us to keep our eyes fully focused on Jesus as we enter this busy period of the year especially when there are so many reasons to be distracted from the true meaning of Christmas and we pray this in Jesus precious name. Amen LET THE CAROLS BEGIN! Page 1 of 10

2 2 Spelling Out What Christmas Is? Intro As you probably noticed from our DVD The people auditioning for a part in the Nativity Play really had no idea what Christmas was about and they brought their own ideas to the Christmas audition And you may have noticed the grumpy director who looked vaguely familiar I m sure I ve seen him somewhere? That grumpy director said he would spell out what Christmas is all about As he s not here tonight I m going to spell it out for you instead? I m going to spell out ONE WORD that describes what Christmas is all about And I ll have some helpers (elves) to put each letter on the wall over there So to find out what Christmas is all about we need to go back to the very beginning of the Bible in fact back to the very beginning of time Our 1 st Letter is the Letter I I for In the beginning [Powerpoint 1 I ] The first verse in the whole Bible says: In the Beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth And after 6 days of creating everything including human beings God saw all that he had made, and it was very good BUT There has to be a But doesn t there? Page 2 of 10

3 3 The first human beings God made Adam and Eve disobeyed God s instructions and ate fruit from the tree in the middle of the Garden, which God said they must not do or they would die! And because of their disobedience 2 things came into the world SIN anything we do that disobeys God s rules came into the world And DEATH came into the world We all inherit those 2 things sin and death - from Adam and Eve We can t stop sinning completely no matter how hard we try And we will all die one day! SO we re all in bother! AND we need someone to fix these 2 problems don t we? Which brings us to Our Next Letter the Letter M M for Messiah [Powerpoint 2 M ] God already knew people would sin and rebel against Him so He had a rescue plan He planned to send a special chosen One known as the Messiah Messiah means God s Special Chosen One it s a Hebrew word The Greek Word for Messiah is CHRIST Messiah and Christ both mean the same thing God s Special Chosen One God told special men called prophets - to write down in the Bible over 2700 years ago that this Special Chosen One, the Messiah would be born one day Page 3 of 10

4 A prophet called Isaiah said that a woman who was a virgin would have a baby who would be the Messiah (Isaiah 7:14) and that this baby Messiah would be a wonderful King living and reigning as King forever and King of Heaven and Earth AND he would be a King who was also known as God AND that this Messiah would also be from the family tree of Israel s famous King, King David 4 Another prophet called Micah even wrote down in the Bible which town this baby Messiah would be born the town of Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) Our Next Letter is also the Letter M M for Mary [Powerpoint 3 M-Mary ] About 700 years after the prophets Isaiah and Micah lived God chose a woman called Mary to have this baby Messiah Mary was engaged to a guy called Joseph and a virgin But Mary became pregnant by the power of God s Holy Spirit This is really important because it means that this baby has a Father who is God Himself and a mother, Mary, who is a human being So this baby will be both fully God and fully human Now, Joseph thinks about not going ahead with marrying Mary because she is now expecting a baby Our Next Letter is the Letter A A for Angels [Powerpoint 4 A-Angels ] Before Joseph can call off the wedding An angel appears to Joseph and says it s okay to marry Mary Because the baby she is having is from God s Holy Spirit Page 4 of 10

5 5 And that Joseph should call the baby Jesus which means the Lord saves or Saviour So Joseph goes ahead and marries Mary And the baby Jesus is born in a stable - because there s no room anywhere else and the town the baby is born in - is the town of Bethlehem just as the prophet Micah had said Angels also appear to a bunch of shepherds outside Bethlehem The angels announce to the shepherds that a Messiah baby Saviour has been born and is lying in a manger an animal feeding trough The shepherds head straight to Bethlehem to find baby Jesus in a stable lying in a manger just as the angels said And when the shepherds do find him they worship Him AND then tell everyone they come across all about baby Jesus this Saviour King and Messiah How about that? This Messiah King and Saviour God s chosen one is born in a stable and lying in an animal feeding trough This is not a bed fit for the King of Heaven and Earth But what it shows is that Jesus will be a different king He will be a humble and servant like King available to everyone And the fact that the shepherds were the first visitors to Jesus Shows that Jesus is not just for the rich, and famous and popular but that Jesus is even for those who are not always liked in our community the shepherds weren t that popular in Bethlehem they were stinky/smelly sometimes they stole from people and yet they came straight away to worship baby Jesus, because they knew He was from God and a Saviour King! No one s too bad to have Jesus in their life he accepts everyone who genuinely comes to Him Page 5 of 10

6 6 Our Next Letter is the Letter N N for News of Great Joy [Powerpoint 5 N-News of Great Joy ] When the angels appeared to the shepherds to announce the birth of Jesus They said they were bringing news that would cause great joy for all people Even some wise men (kings) from the East, followed a star to Bethlehem and when the star stopped over the place where Jesus was they were full of joy too! and they brought Jesus gifts But why is the News of Jesus birth, news of Great Joy? Well It s news of great joy - because Jesus is the only one who can fix the problem of people sinning against God - because Jesus is fully God He is perfect and without any sin And it s news of great joy because it means God keeps His promises And when God plans to do something he does it So how can Jesus fix the problem of people sinning against God, then? Well - that s Our Next Letter the Letter U U for Unique Saviour [Powerpoint 6 U-Unique Saviour ] Jesus is a unique saviour Because He s not like any other superhero like Batman, Superman and so on For a start Jesus is REAL he s not made up For seconds He fixes sin by doing something superheroes don t He dies to save people usually superheroes save people without dying But Jesus dies to save people from the punishment their sin deserves Page 6 of 10

7 7 He died on a cruel Roman cross 2000 years ago And in doing that all our sins past, present and future were dumped on Him He took our blame our guilt our punishment and nailed it to the cross and gave us forgiveness for our sins Even though He hadn t done anything wrong Even though He could have backed out of dying at anytime But He loved God the Father and loved us so much and so He agreed to go ahead and be our Unique Saviour But His death on the cross was not the end of the matter Our Next Letter is the Letter E E for Eternal (or Everlasting Life) Living forever [Powerpoint 7 E-Eternal Life ] You see Jesus didn t just lay down His life on the cross for us to have our sins forgiven Jesus didn t stay dead 3 days later He took up His life again And He rose from the dead And He is alive now in Heaven and He sticks up for us in Heaven and He s also sent the Holy Spirit to live anyone who believes in Jesus - and this Holy Spirit help us and guide us to follow God s rules And because Jesus is alive He promises that if we believe in Him that He died for our sins to be forgiven and that He rose to life again If we believe that about Him - Then we will live forever as well even when we die (John 11:25-26) (pause) Now - we seem to have a letter missing don t we? There s no L Noel Noel the angels did sing there s a Christmas carol there I think? Page 7 of 10

8 8 Our Last Letter is the Letter L L for Lord of our life [Powerpoint 8 L-Lord ] You see it s all very well to hear this Christmas story of how God promised to send Jesus And how Jesus was born and how Mary and Joseph, the angels and shepherds and wise men were all involved And it s all very well to hear what Jesus did by dying on the cross and rising from the dead The whole thing is an amazing story from start to finish But it has to be more than just an amazing story to each one of us It has to mean more than that We have to believe the story is true We have to believe that Jesus is real We have to believe Jesus was born, died, rose again and is alive AND we also have to make it PERSONAL You and I have to say to ourselves: He was born for ME Because He loves ME And He died for ME And He rose for ME And He s forgiven ME of MY sins And He rose from the Dead for ME so I can have life with God forever When it becomes personal for each one of US Then Jesus is LORD of our Life We can call Him Lord because He s now the boss of our life instead of US being the boss of our life When it becomes personal We can then start living our lives to please God and to please Jesus and not just to please ourselves Page 8 of 10

9 9 AND THEN we know who Jesus is and what Christmas is all about It s about ONE word that we just spelt out [Powerpoint-9-Immanuel] It s about the Hebrew Word Immanuel Greek is E mmanuel The Word means God With Us That s what Christmas is all about It s about the birth of a baby A very special baby Who is actually GOD with skin on! Jesus is GOD WITH US! So as we leave here tonight I pray that we all remember and believe that Jesus TRULY is: God with Us And He s the only one that can put us right with God and the only one who gives us the hope of a place in Heaven one day That s definitely worth celebrating as we look forward to Christmas Day! Let s pray Choir Hallelujah Congregation The First Nowell We Wish You a Merry Christmas That brings us to the end of our Christmas Carol Service Thank you to Chris Smillie our musical director Thank you to our wonderful St. David s Choir and St. David s Band Page 9 of 10

10 10 Thank you to our sound people (Leon, Rob, John) Please join us for supper in the Hall Our Sunday Services are 9:30 in the morning - and 5pm Our Christmas Day service is 9am I wish you all a Blessed, Holy and Loving Christmas with family and friends Now - May the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit be with you and remain with you, now and forever more. Amen Page 10 of 10

LEADER DEVOTIONAL. Younger Kids Leader Guide Unit 4, Session Christmas 2018 LifeWay

LEADER DEVOTIONAL. Younger Kids Leader Guide Unit 4, Session Christmas 2018 LifeWay LEADER DEVOTIONAL Leaders: this is just for you! Read ahead of time to engage with the Bible story on an adult level and prepare your heart to teach on Sunday. From the moment sin entered the world, its