12/03/06
The Beginning that Changed the World!
by: Robert H. Schuller
My message today launches the Christmas season from the Crystal Cathedral. And I titled it, "The Beginning that Changed the World." Some years ago I wrote the lines, "There are infinite possibilities in little beginnings if God is in it." Yes, there are infinite possibilities today in the world because Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and that was the beginning of a new religion that would change the world forever. The world would call it Christianity. And one of the most beautiful qualities of Christianity is that it celebrates the giving of gifts.
I heard a funny story the other day of a man who forgot his wife's birthday present. He forgot her birthday because it was only two weeks before Christmas. If you have Christmas and a birthday close together that can create problems. Anyway, she was so upset, she said to him at breakfast in the morning, "Where's my gift?" And he, "Ohhh, I forgot." She said, "I want my birthday gift when I come home from work tonight. At 5:00 PM I want it standing in the driveway and it has to be able to go from nothing to 200 in sixty seconds." When she came home at 5:00 there was a beautiful box wrapped with ribbons in the driveway. She had to get out of the car to move it. It didn't feel too heavy. On the outside was the note, "Dear Annie, here's your gift. Just what you asked for. It'll go from zero to 200 in sixty seconds." She opened it and inside was a bathroom scale.
Well, this church is offering many gifts this Christmas season, but not bathroom scales.
1) We are presenting the Glory of Christmas ministry now through January 7th. The attendance is exciting and the production is getting rave reviews around the world. An exchange student from Germany attended the previews this week and she couldn't stop talking about it. She had never seen anything like it. Nothing like it has ever been performed or attempted in the history of the world. It has become Southern California's Christmas tradition like the Rose Parade in Pasadena has become a New Year's tradition. Give seats to the Glory of Christmas to people you work with, neighbors or associates who don't go to church and who don't have religion. Give the gift of faith this Christmas.
2) Or take someone to our Christmas Eve services. My son and I will be at all seven services and the music will be glorious-3:00, 4:30, 6:00, 7:30, 9:00, 10:30 and midnight. We will be televised to the Armed Forces Network and other television networks around the world. We have no idea how many millions of people will be watching the only televised Christmas Eve service in the world coming from the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. For many, many years we give this gift of faith to the world.
3) And we are also offering this year the book of the Holy Land, Where Jesus Walked. It is absolutely unprecedented! There is no photographer to match Ken Duncan in panoramic photography. He accompanied Mel Gibson to the Holy Land to photograph the Passion movie. Later Ken returned to photograph other places where Jesus walked. His pictures are huge and every picture you see is exactly as if you stood there in person. We ask for a donation of $60 for each book to help pay the increasing television air time expenses at the end of this year. Ken Duncan is donating his photographic talent because this ministry led him to Jesus Christ. That's fantastic!
4) Finally, consider giving a Christmas gift of faith for someone to attend the Faith Forward Forum next month, January 22-24, 2007. I started the very first church growth institute in 1969. And this year we are presenting a forum, where some of the greatest leaders in science, church and religion will dialogue with each other about the future of the Christian faith. They believe that the Christian faith must never die. Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research project, Michael Guillen, PhD, Emmy-Award winning scientist and Dr. Neil Clark Warren, from eHarmony.com will be there. Give the gift of faith this Christmas. Help us turn cynics into seekers … seekers into believers … and believers into achievers.
Yes, the birth of Jesus was the beginning that changed the world. A baby was born in a manger, in a cow stall, in Bethlehem and today more people honor the name of Jesus Christ than any other leader.
I remember a Christmas in our home when the children were quite little, and we were setting up the Christmas tree. Everyone wanted to help decorate it. So we put out the ornaments and the tinsel, and the children began to hang them all along the bottom of the tree. Finally they said, "We're finished, Dad. Isn't it beautiful?" When I went to look at it, I chuckled because the tree was decorated with ornaments only on the bottom half of the tree. They couldn't reach any higher. And I thought that's what life is like without Jesus Christ, only half of what it can be. Jesus Christ lights up all of life with His joy, love and hope. That's what Christmas is all about.
When Christ was born, one of the greatest religions in the world at that time was Judaism. And Jesus a young Jew taught us to add more to the faith than what Moses, Isaiah and the prophets taught, that the world needs charity, grace, and love. So God sent His Son, Jesus, into the world "to finish decorating the Christmas tree." And Jesus Christ put a star at the top and look at what He brought to the world. Just to mention two, Christianity around the world established hospitals to bring care to the sick and dying. And Christianity sent missionaries around the world to those who were illiterate. They taught people to read after first putting their spoken language into writing.
When Jesus was born, religion changed forever. This new religion was like the Christmas tree fully decorated with lights all the way to the top. Wow! And the world was introduced to a new God … a God of peace and love. Jesus Christ taught positive principles of kindness, gentleness and joy. He was a leader who loved His people and taught changing the people whoever and wherever they were. A remarkable shocking religious movement was born when Jesus came to earth to live His life, died on the cross and rose again on Easter. Read the experiences of Jesus in the New Testament, the book of Christian faith. It teaches grace, which is so distinctive from the strict laws of Judaism and the Muslim religion. Grace is the promise that you can be forgiven because God loves you. Grace is God's love in action for people who don't deserve it, and that includes you and me.
And the Christian religion is the only religion of ethical monotheism where the most important theme is forgiveness. So also we must forgive. You and me!
This morning Bill Holler from Germany told how, in prayer, God told him to forgive the man who bankrupted his company and ran off with all the money. When Bill telephoned the man he was on his yacht in the Mediterranean. And Bill said to him, "I forgive you," even though the man did not repent. That's what makes the Christian religion so powerful. Show me another religion outside of Jesus that teaches you to forgive an enemy. That's why Christianity always survives.
Christianity was the beginning that changed the world because it gave the world a new emotional support system. Think of it. There is no other religion that gives such a full and adequate emotional support system to the human being. As I prepared for the ministry I knew my studies would be lacking unless I studied psychology. So as a Hope College student I was impacted by how Jesus Christ provided for all human need. Every human being needs a healthy and strong emotional support system and Jesus Christ gives that. Where do you get the hope to hang on anyway? Where do you get the strength not to call it quits and crash your car into a bridge? Where do you get the courage to stay alive even after your spouse left for someone else? I don't have to remind you of all the emotional ups and downs life throws at us. Where do you get the courage, the strength, and the wisdom to make the decisions you don't want or dare to make? The Christian faith provides this kind of emotional support that's possible through its prayers and its forgiveness.
I told you last week I have just come back from China where for nineteen years because of total atheism, every church was closed with a few exceptions. Theological schools for church leaders were closed. Now two are opened again, one in Nanjing where I lectured at an all morning session. The Reformed Church in America helped build that seminary almost one hundred years ago. And I have been invited back next year to teach positive, possibility thinking theology. Those seminary students will go out all over China to teach the Christian faith. I preached in two churches, closed for nineteen years, which had standing room only. One church was packed with a thousand people, mostly young, plus two overflow rooms with closed circuit TV. That was only one of four morning church services.
The world is changing and the Christian church has a very important responsibility. So I pray that you will join the Christian movement. We all need the positive faith that Christ brought to the world. A loving God, intelligent and affectionate, not just a vague cosmic force … A positive book called the Bible … A powerful emotional support system. Yes, Jesus gives us the positive faith with a joyous personality. Then you begin to dream a dream! You begin to believe in possibilities! You begin to believe in forgiveness! That's what the positive Christian faith does for you. And you can believe in eternal life.
Christmas is the beginning that changed the world. And the most important is the last word. There is life after death! The soul is the recording; the brain is the only recorder. The recorder finally fails, but the tape recording never does. There is eternal life, to all who accept Jesus. "God so loved the world that He gave His only forgotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
Come, join the Christian faith. It can't be matched nor surpassed. Simply come to love Jesus.
Dear Lord, It is Christmas. Thank You for the change You brought into the world, and into my life. I will allow Christmas this year to be the rebirth of my eternal soul. So I raise the hand in my heart to accept Jesus as my Savior. I shall step into the faith. I shall stop waiting, stop wondering, and stop putting it off. I shall give myself the best Christmas gift and that is following Jesus Christ, born two thousand years ago. Amen.
FOR ALL HE HAS DONE AND STILL DOES....
