Are you searching for hope this Christmas? 

Join us for a 25min programme featuring some carols and a short talk from Graham. 

Full Video


Short Talk - Watch


Short Talk - Listen


Transcript
I don't know about you, but in our house, we always seem to be looking for something which is lost. We're always searching for something in our house, most likely it's the TV remote control. It's never found anywhere near where it was apparently placed by the last person to use it! It seems that we're always looking for something, and that's the most popular lost item for us.

Maybe in your house it's your phone or your keys, or maybe like us, it's the TV remote control as well. But in the Christmas story we also find people searching for things. We find Mary and Joseph searching for somewhere to stay. We find the wise men searching for the baby Jesus, they had seen the star in the sky and they travelled and searched for the baby which the stars birth announced. You find Herod too searching for baby Jesus but for less pleasant reasons.

Maybe this Christmas time you're searching for something as well, perhaps something not as mundane as your phone or the TV remote control, but maybe for you at this time of year, this season you're searching for something. Maybe it's peace in what has become a troubled world for you, maybe you're searching for comfort, maybe this year has been a year of loss for you. Maybe there's mourning and grief and you're in search of comfort this Christmas time.

Maybe you're searching for joy, maybe you thought you perhaps lost that over the last little while, and you're trying to find it once again. Maybe for you, you're searching for a purpose in your life, maybe even a reason to live a reason to keep going! You're searching for something in this season, maybe you feel that you've lost some of those things, or they're things that you're searching for afresh.

Some 30 or so years after his birth, we find Jesus explaining to people the good news of the gospel and the coming of the Kingdom of God, and you find him telling some stories. We call them parables, and there are three particular parables that Jesus tells about things that were lost that were then found. The parables about a lost coin, a lost sheep and a lost son.

Each time these things increasing in value, increasing in importance and these stories that Jesus tells, these parables are designed to help us to understand the truth that God loves us and searches for us too when we're lost!

So, this Christmas it isn't just about you searching for things, maybe the mundane phone or TV remote, or maybe searching for something that's of greater importance in in your life but actually we're reminded in this Christmas season that God searches for you! God looks for you, God wants a relationship with you!

Way back in Old Testament times we read the prophet Jeremiah and in a book in the Bible that's named after him, we read him at one occasion prophecy to the people of God that’s a message that God has given.

We find him speaking these words in Jeremiah 29. Jeremiah is speaking and it's the voice of God, really. He's saying “you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart!

Now for those that heard Jeremiah's words, there was a fairly immediate short-term fulfilment of these words that the prophecy described. This is what was going to happen when the people of God would returned from exile. But there's also a fulfilment to that prophetic word now, if you search for God, then the Bible is clear, you will find him!

God wants to make himself known to you in this Christmas season. God makes it clear that if you search for him, you will find him and you will find him in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus whose birth we celebrate at Christmas time.

So, if this Christmas you are searching for things like peace, comfort, joy, a reason to live, hope may be. All these things you can find in a relationship with Jesus Christ himself!

So, I want to encourage you this Christmas time, reach out to God, ask him to reveal himself to you! Maybe pick up a Bible, go to one of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John and read the accounts of Jesus's birth and his earthly ministry and the message of the nearness and the coming of the Kingdom of God that he talks about.

You can discover what it's really like to follow him and discover that relationship with him. You know, I hope you receive some gifts this Christmas. I hope to you enjoy the gift of giving to other people, giving presents to them as well but most of all, I pray that you receive the gift of a relationship with Jesus Christ!

If for you that will be something new this year, then we'll put up on the screen in a moment, a link to one or two resources that can help you on your journey (to find out more visit: jubilee.org.uk/jesus).

But if for you, you already have that relationship with Jesus, I want to encourage you as we begin to finish this year and look towards 2023, that, that relationship with Jesus will be a source of comfort and joy and hope for you as you enter the new year!

In the meantime, have a very happy Christmas!