Speaker 1 0:43

Luke chapter two, it says at the time the Roman emperor Augustus decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman empire, all returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descend of king David, he had to go to Bethlehem and Judea David's ancient at home. He traveled there from the village of Nazarus and Gale. He took with him , Mary to whom he was engaged, who is now expecting a child. And while they were there, the time for her baby was to be born. She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him. What does that word say ? Snuggle snuggly in strips of cloth and laid him in a man jar because there was no lodging available for them that night. There were shepherds staying the fields nearby, guarding their flock of she suddenly an angel. The Lord appeared among them and the radiance of the Lord's glorious front of them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them. Don't be afraid. He said, I bring you good news. That would bring great joy to all people, the savior or yes, the Messiah. The Lord has been born today in Bethlehem, the CD of David. And you'll recognize him by this sign. You'll find a baby wrapped snuggly strips of cloth, lying in a man . Suddenly the angel was joined by a vast host of others. The armies of heaven, praising God and saying glory to God in high heaven and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased. When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, let's go to Bethel ham . Let's see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about. They hurry to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby lying in the Meanger . After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child, all who heard the shepherd story were astonished,

Speaker 2 2:33

But Mary kept all of these things in her heart. And she thought about them often to love you guys love you too. Love you. That's the story of Christmas. But the point I wanna make tonight is God did in the story intend to have the story just end there. It was only made to be the beginning episode one, and God always intended to have you continue the story in your life and in my life as well. And you might be thinking, what do you mean? How do you continue it? What do you mean? Continue the story. Well, what is , if you think about it in our modern day, when you watch something, what do you do? What do we all do when you're watching Netflix or Amazon prime or Hulu or Disney plus, what do we do when we watch that first episode or that new season of that thing? And we kind of get like sucked in by that character. We lean forward and we look at that little button in the bottom, right? And we, we hit play next episode. Right? And we're enamored with the story. We like ask for it. We're begging for the next episode of what's gonna happen. What's going on. And we get connected with this and you know what? They actually know that we're so enamored with the story that nowadays you don't even have to press play next episode. What happens? It says next episode plays in eight seconds. Right? You don't have to press anything. It's just gonna happen. Like you're in for it. And then Disney plus kinda like ruined it for all of us who got really frustrated. I don't know how many of you guys ever watched the Mandalorian? Yeah . Couple years it came out, had another season this next week. Blahba fat . Right? So they like messed with us really bad because we would watch one episode of the Mandalorian and we would have to wait what, an entire week before we could see baby Yoda again and figure out what was gonna happen in this situation. And I know the kids, we were all dying. Like, why would you do this to me? Think plus , right. But when you think about it, like the most watch shows like there was stranger things or this last year, the most watch shows was squid game. But it was a crazy plot line. You to like read it, to watch it kind of deal. Get this, this statistic over 1.6, 5 billion viewing hours of squid games . Like what are we doing with our life right now? 1.6, 5 billion viewing hours. You know how badly we want story? You wanna know how badly we wanna know, like, what is gonna take place next to how badly we beg for it. We watch stuff. That's not even that good. Right. And we're just, no , I don't know . I'm interested. I mean like, come on, tiger king, are you kidding me? Like 64 million households watch the entire season of tiger king. Right. But that's just what we do. Right. We , we just like lean all the way in. And then when you're sitting there and you know, you should go to sleep, like, you know, it's been too long and like, Netflix is now shaming you by asking you, are you still there? And you're like, oh yeah, I haven't moved in a while . Maybe I should take a break. Right. And you're like leaned all the way in cuz you're like hooked on these characters. And what do you do when you look at that other person next to you , you're just, you know, you should stop. You look over in the sit , those three famous words. Let's just watch one more episode. Well , what's my point. It's simply this. What do , what do we know about ourselves? We want the story to continue. We demand that the story continues. This is why we keep pressing play next episode yet. When it comes to God, when it specifically, it comes to the local church, we take a different posture. Don't we? So many times God starts to write this story in our life starts to do something, starts to move in. Our life, starts to write this good story. And some of you, even tonight, maybe you're here and you've even experienced it already, just tonight in a few moments of this store , God moving already in this service. And what do we do so often we don't press play. Next episode, we come to Christmas service, like maybe one more. And then we just walk away from it. We walk off into our own life and do our own thing. And you might say like, okay, well what do you mean? Like, how do you do that? How do you actually pray play next episode? How does that, how does that look? What does that look like? Well, for one, for one, it means that you need to commit right now to the local church. Right? And some of you you're looking at me going, like, what does it mean? Commit to the local church? Well, that's what Jesus came. And he left for all of us as the main vehicle of hope and spreading the word that the local church is the hope of the world. And I, some of you're thinking right now, you're thinking, no, no, pastor, boy, I don't do church. Right. I've tried church and I don't do church. In fact, I don't do religion. I don't like religion. I don't even mess with it. And I don't do those things. I want you to know , um, that , uh , I am glad you're here because I know some of you, I don't know why you're here. Uh , some of you, you came here , uh , tonight because you have to, you're like, Nope , I don't do church. I don't do religion, but I'm only here because I don't wanna get written of the will. I'm only here because I want to be able to get a Christmas present. I'm only here because that's how I'm gonna get fed later tonight. Like whatever the reason is that you're here. I am so , so glad you're here. Right? And I don't know what it is, but I want you to hear something from me as the pastor of this place. I don't do religion either. Amen . You might be like, huh ? What? Yeah. So often religion is just a bunch of rules. And you think that God's sent his son Jesus to die. Are you so you could just have a bunch of rules? No, that's not how this works. What you'll hear here is that Jesus came and what we wanna do is get you in relationship with him. We want , we want you to go on an adventure with him. We wanna see a new thing, a new story, take place in your life. This T thing with Jesus . And that's what he wants for you. Your best story yet, not a bunch of rules. And if you come to Northgate, you're not gonna get a bunch of rules. What you're gonna get is you're gonna find a whole bunch of people opening God's word every week and leaning in and pressing play next episode and watching the story that God wants to write in your life. And he is writing in your life. So yeah, maybe some of you have you been to church, but I wonder, have you ever been to a church like Northgate? So here's my challenge for 2022, would you press play next episode? Would you commit, would you commit to not letting this service and maybe Easter or this service in Easter and maybe one other service be the only services that you attended would , what would , what would it take? Would you let the story continue? And you wanna know why some of you doubt you will, or you even want to it's because you've wondered away, you've wondered away and you've wondered based on your past and how rough it was and how it's been , uh, that you wonder if there's even a story for you. You , you wonder if God even has a good story for you. I met with a , a buddy of mine just a couple weeks ago. We went to lunch and he's had a rough year, actually a rough few years. And we were in midst of conversation and he was just telling me, you know, the ways, the things that he's chased after and the ways he's responded to things and things that he's gotten involved in. And as I was listening to him, he then turned it into like saying, Hey, Larry , Larry, I'm kind of mess . Cuz I don't think God has a good story for me. I don't think God can write a good story in my life. And it broke my heart. And I wanna tell you exactly what I told him. Do you think that even when you have a rough patch that God, God intends to leave. You stuck. Think of it this way. When you watch an episode on Netflix or one of these channels and the character that you've attached yourself has a rough episode. Do you just like throw the remote and be like, it's done it's over with, I'm not gonna watch it again. It's it's done. There's no hope, right? No. You like, wait, you endure. Or like you're like there you're like something. There's gotta be some hope and some redemptive to this, right? You watch a football game or like you watch the warriors and Steph Curry's on the court and there's time left in the clock. You know, anything can happen. Right? And we stay engaged involved. Did you know, sometimes someone's greatest setback can actually be their best set up for their best story yet their best result yet. So why would you let the story stop in your life? Just because you've had a rough year or a few years or a life friends, if you're not dead, God's not done. So I wanna challenge you this Christmas. I wanna challenge you this Christmas. Would you get involved in a local church and press play next episode? And if you're from out of town, you're just here visiting. Would you go back to your community and get involved in a local church? But if you're around here, if you're around the bay, let me tell you some of the things that you're gonna experience. If you press play next episode and you get involved here at Northgate, a few things. One is this. The first thing is this you're gonna experience real community. You're gonna experience real community where people are coming alongside of you to help you live your best life, where you get to mourn and celebrate with one another where you get to carry each other's burdens this thing. This life was not made to go solo. It was made to, to be in community. That's how God created it to be next. You're gonna find hope for your relationships and your marriage. You're gonna find hope for your relationships and your marriage. I can say I've been married for 17 years and marriage is hard. I'll say that openly. I'll say it a lot. You asked my wife should say the same thing. Relationships period with other people, period are hard, but I'll tell you what. I don't know how marriage works, unless Jesus is right in the center of it. Next I'm gonna tell you this you're gonna find help for your kids and your students. I got four of 'em , like I said, and I am passionate about having one of the best student ministry and children's ministries around. I want the best for my kids. And I know you, you want the best for your kids too, right? And I'm gonna tell you right now, you can't give the best for your kids without Jesus. And would you help us? Would you let us help you this year? And I promise if you do, we will next. I think that you're gonna find here your peace and purpose. So often we find ourselves chasing peace, chasing peace and purpose. And like so many that have chased. It they've discovered that you can't find peace without Jesus, because that's why he came. He came to give you peace and to give you purpose. And the fifth thing I think you're gonna find here is you're gonna find a church that's about more than just us. We're about more than just us. We don't wanna have an inward focus. We wanna have an outward focus impacting our communities for Jesus. Now this is why we did 21 days straight of an huge event, a light show to bring some joy in some hope to people in a safe, fun way. That's why many of you guys don't know this. This has kind of been a holy space. In the last few days. We host Memorial services here and celebrations of life all the time. So people literally in the last four days, we have three services in here. We could been all about us and be like, no, we got Christmas. We got a bunch of people coming. We got a party. We gotta get ready to host. We gotta get everything set up. But no, we said, Nope , you, you are welcome to come here because we wanna be about more than just us. And so people were in here and celebrating someone and grieving all in the same space because we wanna be more about just us. In fact, one of those , uh , there was actually someone they had called 10 different places to see if they could have a service there. And everyone said no. And we said, we're about more than just us. So why we do food pantries that we saw 1,500 or 1.5 million pounds of food. That's uh , were given out this last year. That's why this last year, get this in 2021. This is incredible to me just to kind of wrap it up. You and your generosity and this faith community gave over $600,000 to people locally and globally. That blows my mind. Yeah. You can give yourself a hand for that over half a million dollars locally and globally to help it's it's crazy. That's what you'll find here, but can I get personal with you right now? This Christmas? What's it gonna take? What's it gonna take in 20, 22 for God to write a better story in your life? I think it's gonna take you pressing play next episode because the story of Christmas continues through you. And for some of you, it seems daunting. It seems daunting because you've wondered off. You're not sure if there's a good story for you and you're just hiding. Wondering how many of you guys been to Disneyland or how many of you guys know of Disneyland? All right . I'll , I'll explain it a little bit. <laugh> so , uh, I took , uh , the whole family. We went to Disneyland years ago and uh, the day six pack . And uh , I don't know if you guys know this , um , I know nothing other than this right now, but when you have four kids, there's something that constantly happens anytime you're together or traveling anywhere you do this, a parent does this in their mind nonstop and they can multitask. You can be in the middle of a serious conversation with someone and the kids around. They're constantly doing this 1, 2, 3, 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3, 4. And what they're doing is they're identifying, I see 1, 2, 3, 4 children, right? And so every once in a while they'll be doing something, you'll be like 2, 3, 4 1 2, 3, 4 1 2 3, 4 1 2 . Right? So we have taken all of the children, all of us. We are now at Disneyland. We are in California adventure and we are an on an adventure. And certainly in the morning you're walking along and you're like, you gotta hold this and you take care of this person. And this is your job. And here's the rules. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. We go to the bathroom, take a potty break. And we come out and if you've ever been to Disneyland, this is what happens at Disneyland out of the ground. Out of nowhere, a parade just pops up outta nowhere. <laugh> so you're walking and you're like all of a sudden parade. And you're like, oh yeah. And they last for like 10 minutes. So we stop and we're bebopping, we're like, oh, check out the parade. I didn't even know what's happening for . Right. And they're singing and dancing in the parade kind of in , and we're like, that's awesome. Right. We look around and start doing this. I start looking around going 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. Do you got four? No, I thought you had four. No, I thought you had four where's four. I'm gonna figure that out. <laugh> so I started to look and be like, don't , I'm gonna find four right now. And I start looking around 20 minutes later. I'm still looking around, trying not to panic. I'm like walking around, not trying to be that guy that lost their kid and I'm trying to call and I'm like, right . Bird trying to get they're like, I have nothing . Right . And so I'm wondering around, I can see my wife starting to panic a little bit and she's looking and I'm like, oh yeah, no , I'm looking for her . <laugh> and now she's like changing the rules. You guys all stay right there. And now she's trying to look real , real quick. So finally, I don't know if I just got humble or dropped my pride away . I'm thinking like we are getting kicked out of this place. So I like wonder up to a security guard that I found. And I was like, Hey , um , just, Hey, how you doing? He like, looks at me and he is like, you else . See's dad <laugh> and I like , I got it . I got four, I got four he's looking at me. And he is like, all right . He was like, does little walk type thing . He is like, Hey , uh , you gotta bring over El over here . And he is like, she's down in the tower of terror . And I was like, what? It's like a quarter of the mile down the road because the parade popped up and she was just like watching the parade go on. And we stood back there like this. Right. And so Elsie's gone down there. I'm waiting for her . And I was like to kick us out. I'm really sorry . I can't believe this happened. And oh my gosh. When in so much trouble looks at me , it's like, we're not gonna kick you out. It's not a big deal. So I was like, okay , thanks. So I can see her. And she's now, you know, from a distance and you can , as you can imagine, I mean, just like , right. And she's been by the tower terror . So she's freaked out. So she's coming towards me and I'm trying to stay cool and stuff like that. And she comes over and kind of runs up. I grab her and I scoop her up and I do what exactly. Every one of you would've done. I went, why did you do that? <laugh> well , what you think ? You know, the rules quit crying . They're going to kick us out. Right? You think I did that? No. Somebody says, yes, come on. <laugh> no, no. She came running up. I scooped her up and I looked at her and I said, Elsie, Elsie, I love you. I gave her a big hug. I said, it's okay. It a sweetheart . It's okay. It's okay. No, no. You are the tower terror . That's terrifying. Oh my gosh. No, I missed you too. I can't believe it. I was looking for you. I promise I was right here. I love you. Yeah, no , they're not gonna kick us out. They're not gonna kick us out. Hey, will you hold my hand kick . Can we go on an adventure? Can we go through the tower of tower together? Can we go walk and see a new story and make a new memory together? I love you. No stop crying. You're okay. Sweet girl. I love you. That's what I did. You know, that's exactly what you heavenly fought does when you've wondered off and you've found yourself at the tower tear , or you've just been wandering off doing your own thing. And you're wondering if you can write a new story in your life, or if you can be found, when you come back, I want you to know you're allowed to come back. You're allowed to press play episode because when you come back, your heavenly father scoops you up and says, I love you. No, it's okay. You're not in trouble. I'm not mad at you. Now . Can , can I , can we walk together? Can we make a new story? Can I do this life with you? Can I, can we discover what joy looks like together? Can we hope together? Can we love other people together? I love you. I love you. What happens when we watch a great story friends, when we watch a story like that happen, or a story like that happens in our own life, what do we do? We tell everybody about it. You gotta watch this. You gotta show up at this church, the things that are happening when I'm open this up and I'm pressing play next episode, the things that are happening in me, the story that's being written, that I didn't thing could be written is happening. You need to , you need to discover this. You need to feel this, you need this, we need this. It's beautiful. We invite other people. We all love a great story. And for some of you, you need to invite other people into it. But still I think some of you doubt, I still think some of you doubt that God can love you and do a great thing this next year. So here's a testimony in just a moment. A's gonna sing a song over you, and you're gonna see the words on the screen. And you're gonna picture this as you're heavenly father singing over you. And as you're watching those words, if you're in hearing you doubt, or you wonder if God has a story to write, I'm gonna ask everyone in here who has discovered and is feeling that God has started to write a new story in their life this past year, or maybe this past day or this past week or these past couple years or , or at Northgate, the things that you've gone through. And you said, God's starting to write a new story in my life. I believe this, I'm seeing this. I'm feeling this. If that's you, you all have a phone and on your phone, you have a light. And during this song as Aung over, you, will you hold up that light. So those of us who doubt as testimony can look around and see God is writing stories, and he can write a story in my life as well. And all you need to do is come outta hiding.