in order prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for your wonderful word. Thank you for this day that we can celebrate your birth. Thank you for coming to earth to live with us and to die for our sins, Lord.
I just pray that anyone here who doesn't know you, doesn't, doesn't, hasn't put their faith and trust in you, Lord, that they would see your light and see that you are life. I pray all these things in Jesus' name, Amen. All right. So my laptop is since disconnected from the Internet.
That's cool. It's not like my whole message was stored on said Internet. Let me see if I can fix that real quick here. I think I should be able to.
No problem. There we go. That should do it. Yes.
That's them, not me. So anything good they're doing up there, that's not me. And that wants me to sign back in. So I'm going to speak on Emmanuel, the importance of God's presence.
God with us. God's presence is his greatest gift. He wants this thing loads. All right.
So Kingsley just read a passage from Matthew chapter 1. And let me, so Matthew 1 versus, this is not working here. Sorry. I should just deviate from it.
So Matthew 1 verses 22 and 23, it talks about how you shall call his name Emmanuel, which is God with us. This is a significant promise from God that he's sending someone from heaven, not just someone, but God himself is coming from heaven to live with us. So Jesus' final words in Matthew to his disciples. Sorry here.
Matthew 28. So in Matthew 28 verse 20, it says, and be sure of this. I am with you always, even to the end of the age. This is God's promise to his disciples and his promise to us as believers that as we go out and we share the gospel, God is always with us.
Jesus is with us. The Holy Spirit is with us. This has been God's doing throughout history. We've seen several people.
So first, I'm going to jump in. We're going to go to the next slide here. I don't know if I have a pointer. Oh, yeah.
What's the best thing about Christmas? That's right. So the best thing about Christmas. I want people's answers.
I want their honest answers. You don't need to do a Sunday school answer. What's the best thing about Christmas? I want to ask my kids that.
I don't know if they're here. They're not here. Eggnog is a good answer. Jesus is the best answer.
There's gifts. There's the creepy woody Christmas tree down down the mall there. Jingle bells. That's a good one.
So my honest answer is shortbread. That's why I put it on there. If you plan on killing me, put me in a room without a responsible adult and shortbread. Endless shortbread.
And you'll eventually find me belly up. Big belly up. So that's my biggest weakness is shortbread. I think I remember David Hanson saying that as well, but himself.
He loves shortbread. So the real truth is that God's presence, God being with us, is the best part of Christmas. It's the fact that we celebrate God with us, God coming to earth. Excuse me.
I'm not still sick. I have a bit of a voice problem today. But we're going to flip the next slide here. These final words, the disciples.
I already spoke on this. So be sure of this. I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. It's at the beginning of Matthew.
It's at the end of Matthew. He emphasizes God's presence with us. Next slide. So these are people throughout history that God has been with.
And I guarantee, guarantee 100% if you read through all of the Old Testament, you'll find many, many, many more examples of people. I can only fit three in a short little 10 minute window. There are so many people that God is with. I'm going to start with Moses, because in chronological order, Moses was in Egypt.
And he saw, he did all kinds of things. He was rescued by Pharaoh's daughter. He was, he killed in Egyptian at one point. And his life up until his early 40s, he was, he was, he would have been seen somewhat as a, a bit of a failure.
He committed manslaughter at one point, different things. So when you look at Moses, when he comes to the burning bush, and God says, go and talk to Pharaoh and tell him to let my people go, when, when God speaks to Moses in the burning bush, Moses says, I can't do that. I'm not a good speaker. I'm not a good, whatever.
I'm not a good leader. None of this stuff. God doesn't come back and say, no, no, you're good at that stuff. You're good.
You're all right. He says, now go. I am sending you to Pharaoh. You must lead my people out of Egypt.
Moses protested to God. Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people out of Egypt? God answers in verse 12.
I will be with you. And this is a sign that I am the one who sent you. When you brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God at this very mountain. God validates his request to Moses by saying, I will be with you.
And it's so important in the Old Testament to see those things. We go to Gideon. Gideon and Judges, chapter six. And these are very prominent examples.
There's another one in there too, after Gideon. It's David as well. He's fighting Goliath. He talks about the Lord being his strength.
But we look at Judges chapter six, verse 14. The Lord turned to him and said, go with the strength you have and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you. That strength that Gideon had ended up being 300 men against over 10,000, the scripture says.
But Lord, Gideon replied, how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh. And I'm the least in my entire family. And God says, I will be with you.
And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man. You see God's strength with Gideon. God's presence. That's what's important.
Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter one. God tells him to go and speak to the people of Israel this time. Oh, thanks. Well, that's better.
Not really. That's great though. Thanks. Jeremiah chapter one, verse five.
I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb. This is God speaking to Jeremiah. Before you were born, I set you apart and anointed you as my prophet to the nations. Oh, sovereign Lord, Jeremiah said, I cannot speak for you.
I'm too young. The Lord replied, do not say I'm too young. For you must go wherever I send you and say whatever I tell you. And do not be afraid of the people.
For I will be with you and will protect you. I the Lord have spoken. And like I said, this is all throughout the Old Testament. You'll see it everywhere.
God being present with his people. Just like these men, they were unable to please God on their own. They did not love the Lord, their God, with all their heart, soul, mind and strength at all times in all ways. They're sinners, just like us.
God doesn't affirm or validate their goodness or strength. He promises to be with them. That's what he says. Just like with believers, we're not good in our own strength.
God doesn't validate our own strength, our own goodness. We have none. We don't have any. All we have is him.
That's it. I want to go to the next slide. And this is talking about fellowship with God. Oh, maybe the next slide?
Yes. I don't know why that other one got moved. That's okay. I'm going to read the whole first chapter of 1 John and then the first verse of the second chapter.
It's not too long. It's only 10 verses. Actually, it's 11 verses if we include that other verse. So we proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning whom we have heard and seen.
We saw him with our own eyes. We touched him with our own hands. He is the word of life. This one who is life itself revealed to us and we have seen him.
And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father and then he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy. This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you God is light and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness. We are not practicing the truth.
But if we are living in the light as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other. And the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all wickedness.
If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word is not has no place in our hearts. My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous.
There's several things in this chapter that suck out to me and I know this isn't a traditional Christmas chapter. It's about God with us. It's about fellowship with God. Jesus is described here as life itself and who is eternal life.
This is the significance of Jesus and who he is and the fact that he came to earth to be with us because he is our life. He is life itself. He is eternal life. It talks about sin later in this chapter.
It says that God is life and there is no darkness in him at all. If we are living in spiritual darkness, we can't have fellowship with God. What does spiritual darkness mean? Well, when we look at John chapter three, not first John, but John chapter three, it talks about people loving the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil.
Our deeds are evil, but we need to love the light. That light needs to shine on us, shine on our hearts, and we need to be able to confess our sins to each other, to God, and be honest with ourselves and be honest with God. Jesus is also our advocate between us and God. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin and he is our advocate.
He speaks for us. This is a tremendous truth and it is the gospel, basically in a nutshell. We can have fellowship with God because of his blood, if we confess our sins, if we, and because he is living and he is our advocate. I am going to go to the next slide.
Yes, the significance of Emmanuel. God has extended an internal invitation to us through Jesus Christ. God promises to never leave us and God is with us. These are three tremendous truths.
So what is the greatest thing about Christmas? Next slide. In the next slide, God's Christmas presence. Sorry, I am a father of three.
I had to throw a dad joke in there. But it is true. God's presence at Christmas is so important. I am going to pray and then we are going to keep on singing and that will be that.
Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for being with us. Thank you for coming to earth, to live with us, and to die for us, and to rise so that we might live. Lord, I just pray that you would be with all of us as we leave tonight and be with us all as we fellowship tonight. I just pray that we would know your presence and in Jesus name, amen.