Best Gifts Ever - Week 2 - The CORE - Pastor Mike Novotny

Best Gifts Ever
Week 2 - The CORE
Pastor Mike Novotny

It's called the Best Gifts Ever.

Our own Christmas time. Have you ever received a truly glorious gift?

Now, the word glorious is something that is as far from like a lame, mediocre gift that you can imagine if there's some spectrum of like a gift that you just kind of hope the receipt is inside so you can quickly return it and pass those like nice necessary gifts, but nothing special. No glorious is something that makes you say.

Serious. That why?

It's kind of emotionally, gets stuck in your heart. That's how you know a gift is truly glorious. Do you think back on all your Christmases have you ever gotten a gift like that?

Yeah, I was thinking about glory and gifts and I decided to help us out with this concept, to purchase a brand new invention that has never before been seen by human eyes. I have it with me here today. Just arrived in the mail. It uses the latest in AI technology, facial recognition software and decibel reading it is called, are you ready for it? The Gloryometer.

Aka the Gloryometer. It has this incredible. This is like breaking Tech by the way, it just kind of reads the vibe in the room and determines how glorious a gift.

Or there's just a handle back here that I can move back anymore. So what I want to do is talk about some Christmas gifts that you might gift, and I need your participation for this part of the message. So I need you to respond. How glorious these gifts are if you hear it and you think, man. No, I won't want that under the tree. I want you to say loudly from the diaphragm.

And if it's okay like yeah, I suppose I needed that thanks for getting that but it's not anything, really special when she showed, okay. But if it's something,

Like yes, please. Lord. I want that for this Christmas. I want you to get the eyebrows up into your forehead and say, wow. Okay. You ready for the gifts? All right, let's imagine it's Christmas.

You've got that first present from under the tree. It's got your name on it. There's your parents or your significant other or your closest friends, and you unwrap the gift. And inside, you're ready to vote. Inside is a pair of brand-new warm Christmas socks.

You know, the older I get and the colder, I get the more I start to realize socks are pretty, I suppose, maybe, um, all right. Let's imagine you unwrap that same gift with your name on it and inside is the latest addition of Call of Duty.

Wow. Yes, I had some young man in the room were like, yes that is all I want for Christmas is a first-person shooter game in Jesus' name. All right. How about if you unwrap the gift and inside. There were four tickets to a Green Bay Packer game.

You know this season, I don't know. We used to be green. And now we're kind of gold, right? Things are changing around here Northeastern Wisconsin. All right. What if it wasn't Packer tickets? Well, if it was two front row tickets to see Taylor Swift,

Oh my goodness, we're the Swift. My daughter in the first service was like, oh my goodness, please give me Taylor Swift tickets. What if it was a free all-inclusive package of somewhere, warm and sunny and sandy? Can we all agree? Yes, yes, if you're watching at home, For recording this sermon in Wisconsin. So all of us during the winter time. Can't wait. Yeah. Yeah, I think all of us when we get together with family and friends, I mean we don't want to buy something just for someone to return it and not like it. And I suppose there's some token gifts, you got to get because they're necessary and you need it, but all of us during the Christmas season want to get into the wow Zone. We are looking for aching, hoping to both give and get gifts that are truly glorious.

But not to rain on your gift giving experience, do you know the problem? With a gift that we exchange.

The problem is that even if you find the perfect gift, even if you manage to blow someone's mind with a gift that you have given to them. My experience is that the glory of the gifts, we exchange kind of fades.

What's wow on Christmas morning. Give it a little bit of time. The wow kind of wears off.

This happened a couple years ago to my family.

I kind of splurged and I decided to buy my daughters, a brand new, big kind of family gift a brand new Nintendo Switch gaming system, right? It's going to revolutionize the Novotny House. I bought Mario Kart. I bought FIFA Soccer. I bought all the latest Mario Luigi games. And when the girls open, I actually took a picture when they were opening the gift. Let me show it to you. That was where they said. What? They were stunned that they don't say. “We were so excited.” We plugged the thing in, we put in the games or racing each other on Christmas day.

And then, by week two, we didn't play quite as much and by month two, we kind of forgot that the whole thing was down that we started games on that first day that to this day years later, We still haven't finished. It was so glorious in the moment but the glory, it started to fade.

Now, I'm not telling you that just to make Christmas super depressing for you this year.

I'm saying this because if there's one thing as a pastor that I, I don't want to happen to you this holiday season.

Is that the glory of the Christmas story starts to fade?

I'm not sure if your church experience or how often you've been around places like this during the holiday season but the longer you're a church-going Jesus-following kind of person. Maybe the faster we lose the wow and the, what.

Serious.

Reaction to Jesus. We've heard the stories we've seen them. Yeah, the Virgin was with child and gave birth to a son. The Savior has come to the world. We just get so used to the story that we forget that the people who first saw Jesus and witnessed who he was, and what he said, no one said meh. When it came to the Messiah.

And few people were on the fence when it came to Jesus. He provoked, whoa.

What did you do?

And today my goal in this message. Is to get you in the glory zone with Jesus. The Son of God.

My hope is to give you this gift. If you're kind of new around here or maybe re-wrap and re-gift to the same old stories to think like there is no one who has been is or will be Quite like Jesus.

And if you know him, if you trust him, if you follow him this Christmas season, you have a thousand reasons to say, wow. I am so blessed.

So today I want to go back to one of Jesus's closest friends. He was a guy named John who wrote one of the four biographies of Jesus, the Gospel of John, In the very first chapter is introduction. John says this about Jesus.

He said the word that was a nickname for Jesus. The word became flesh and made his dwelling Among Us, we have seen his Say this word with me glory. The glory of the one & only son. Now, the shocking thing about these words is not that John was wowed with Jesus. It's when he was wild with Jesus. Jesus finished his ministry about 30 A.D. But John didn't write his gospel until the 90s. So 60 years had passed. And yet, when John sat down to write, he said, “We saw his glory, Jesus.”

But we couldn't process who he was, and what he said, and what he did. And today I'm going to try to get you a little bit closer to where John's heart was. I want to give you a crash course on Jesus Christ. I want to share five, truly glorious things about Jesus or some of you this will be brand new for some of it. Some of you've heard this before, but I want you to see it with fresh eyes today. Five things that will make Jesus the Son of God.

The most amazing, glorious person you've ever heard of?

So grab a pen, grab a program. We're going to write fast, we're going to move quickly today. Here's the first. Glorious thing I want to share The first Glorious thing is what. Jesus did.

And I'm thinking about the miracles that Jesus performed. Some of you have seen at least one episode of a streaming TV series about Jesus called The Chosen.

Yeah, 40 of the hands here today. The Chosen it's insanely good.

What always gets me when I'm watching The Chosen is the moment when Jesus does a miracle.

No, people are interested in Jesus. He's talking he's kind of interesting but it's like the moment people realize that he just did something that no one else could do. And the expressions on their faces,

Like that's just emotionally wrecks me every single time. I think when that disabled man is lined by the pool.

For years, he hasn't felt anything from the waist down. He sits there helpless, hopeless until Jesus comes and says, “Get up.”

Guy looks at him like it's a sick joke. Jesus says it again and the guy. Just prove. Jesus is all talk. He punches himself in his numb, feelingless leg.

Except this time.

This time the words of Jesus restore the nerves that send the message to his and if you could see his face.

Or when Peter the fishermen he hasn't started following Jesus yet. Jesus tells him to let down his nets for a catch and Peter's like, “What? We've been fishing all day. We're not going to catch anything.” Jesus says go.

He throws a net in, he looks at Jesus told you.

Favorite episode.

Until supernaturally, the fish jump into the net. And Peter looks at Jesus.

Jesus just smiles back like those moments when dead people breathe.

When dark demons went running for their lives, when blind people open their eyes for the first time. Can you imagine if you had seen just one of those moments?

Maybe all the time. Favorite moment of the chosen is when John the Baptist watched Jesus, just drive out a demon with his mighty word. Do you remember what John does? He goes.

Yeah, what but demons so strong, no one contains them, but Jesus speaks a word he says “get” and the demon goes. Can you imagine being John and seeing that happen not once or twice but dozens and dozens and dozens of times? You cannot have said, yeah, I had a friend named Jesus.

No, you just said, wow.

John said after Jesus's first miracle in chapter 2 of his book, this

Jesus did here in Capernaum of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his sit with me. Glory. And his disciples believed in him. They believed in him. Because he revealed that he was more than a good teacher. He was more than some man. He was the Glorious Son of God. Would come all the way down from heaven.

And I'll tell you this, he is the same God.

When you read the Bible about these things that Jesus did don't think well that was like a pre-morable version of Jesus. But now, you know, Science gets the last word.

Now, Jesus didn't heal everyone in his day and you and I both know, he doesn't heal all of us today, but I want you to believe that this is the same God with the

What?

To make people with medical degrees. Very, very confused.

Do not pray small prayers. If you follow Jesus.

Pray for him to fix it for him to heal it. For him to change it. If a doctor says, you only have X months to live, that might be true. Or Jesus might speak a single word and do to you what he did. So often back then to reveal his glorious power, his Divine nature, he can do it. What Jesus did and does. Is glorious.

Number two. The second glorious thing is what Jesus said.

In fact, if you had asked Jesus himself, he would rather have been famous. For his words. Instead of his works.

Kind of confusing. When you first read the Bible, Jesus will do some miracle and he'll say to the person he's healed. Hey, don't tell anyone about this. I love you. I want to make you better but I don't want to get mobbed just so I can heal people's bodies. I want to speak words that can change people's eternities.

In the Book of Matthew, we find this in the crowds We're amazed at Jesus's teaching because he taught as one who had authority.

So when Jesus preached, people insane. What's your brunch?

Okay. Box checked.

No, when he spoke. They?

I've heard a good friend who didn't grow up as a Christian thinker, reading the Bible. But now that she's a Christian and she's following Jesus, she comes to church well Sunday, she listens to his word and she says Pastor Mike so often when I hear the words in the Bible like, I either feel like, I'm getting slapped or like I'm being hugged.

The words of Jesus are not mediocre to her, they're incredibly convicting. Or they're shockingly comforting. Have you experienced this too?

You ever sat in church just like, I was reading. The words of Jesus the other day. And he, he said this, The mouth speaks.

What the heart is full of.

And I said, whoa.

When ugly stuff comes out of my mouth. What I want to say is that it's stupid drivers who don't understand how to drive on the road. I want to say it was just my kids, you know, pushing my buttons or was this thing that happened or he started? Jesus would say wait what?

No, no, no. Make the only reason that came out of you. Is because it was already in you.

You know, people get busted saying something really dumb or stupid, they like to defend themselves. Say, I'm not that kind of person.

She said, what where do you think that came from?

He came out of your mouth because it was already in your heart.

And so you can say well my ex pushed my buttons. I'm not really that kind of person. It was a stressful season at work and Jesus would say, come on Let's be honest. Came out of you because it was within you.

In patients, didn't magically appear in your mouth, it started. In your heart, you are that kind of person.

But then, Jesus is Savage about going after our sin, then he says, the most loving, patient.

Compassionate forgiving. Things. It's almost have you read the good news of the Bible.

Of just this week, I was talking, to this young woman who's facing, like, serious prison time.

Struggling with what she did. Can she be forgiven and I said to her. Do you know what? The Biggest authors of the Bible have in common.

Moses were the first five books of the Bible King David wrote 75 of the Psalms Paul wrote, half the books of the New Testament. You know what? Moses David and Paul have in common.

They murdered someone.

You know what?

Moses murdered a man who was being assaulted.

I should say a man who is assaulting his friend. He hid the body, David wanted this woman so badly, he slept with her got her pregnant, had her husband murdered Paul was killing Christians because he thought they were anti-god and yet.

God.

He forgives and loves people like that. The Bible says that Jesus was the friend of prostitutes and tax collectors and Sinners, we would expect that Jesus to say, you know, God is watching, so be good for goodness sake. There's a nice, listen to naughty list and then Jesus just goes and he loves people on the naughty list. So, who, who would love me at my worst? And people break up with me if I'm bad, they don't want to be friends with me because I'm a bad influence, but Jesus in that moment says come to me.

There's forgiveness for that, I can save you. From that like he wraps these arms of unbelievable patients and love around us. And he gives us something we absolutely don't deserve.

I just can't get used to the gospel.

That Jesus would say such beautiful things to me and about me despite the sins that I've committed.

And he says the same thing to you.

Raising someone from the dead. Whoa.

Telling a center that they're saved as a free gift.

Wow.

Jesus might not heal everybody in this room, but he can and wants to heal every Soul.

So, lean in. Listen to his words. Stop. Zoning out in church because the message we have here is so insane. Wow. God would love a sinner, just like me.

And follow that, weren't enough.

And there's the third glorious thing about Jesus.

Third, Glorious thing about Jesus is how he lived.

Jesus had all the power. All the authority. He is the Son of God walking here on this planet and yet be stunned by this fact. He was absolutely good.

Now you might be used to that. Well yeah he's Jesus of course he's going to be nice. Of course. He's going to follow God. Of course he's going to be obedient. But did, you know, in many ancient religions how their God's behaved

They have the power to do what they wanted.

Yeah, I think the story of Zeus, you know, Zeus the Greek god He's like the Apex deity, the father and king of all the other gods but Zeus was a very very bad bad selfish God.

Some of the most famous Greek myths are about Zeus's Badness. He was often inflamed with lust for human women and he would use his divine almighty power to get what he wanted.

There's this one story about this woman that he falls in lust with, but she's married. And she's not going to cheat on her husband. So what does Zeus do?

Snaps his fingers and transforms his appearance into that of her husband. Walks through the door. Pokes up with a woman. He wants. She gets pregnant as a baby named. Hercules. That's where Hercules got his big power from from daddy, Zeus. This is wife hated him because he was so unfaithful, but he was the man with the authority and the power and he used it for himself.

Not Jesus.

There was no documentary, five years after Jesus, got back to heaven about the girls of Galilee. That Jesus had on the side.

There was no, expose famous podcast about the scandalous way, that Jesus took a little bit of money for his personal gain, he was God walking on Earth. And there's no Bible story about anyone washing his feet.

There's one about him washing the feet of his friends.

You could have done anything. He wanted walk on water transport from here to there. Jesus never used his power for as there ever been. Any. Who had that much power?

And was yet that selfless and giving to the world.

And one of the reasons I trust Jesus so much, even when he asked me to do something that's hard, is because he has a long track record of only serving us.

He's never trying to use. People never wants you to read your Bible or pray more or give money or come to church, we can get something, he is, not that kind of person, he's not Zeus.

He's a Son of God. Came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life. As a ransom for many.

In Hebrews chapter 4, we find this stunning verse. It says, we have one Was been tempted in every way. Just as we are yeah, he Jesus Did not sin.

How Jesus Lived sinless, perfect and pure wow. Was glorious.

Then number four.

There's how Jesus died.

And we come to church. You see across You might get used to it. It's a symbol of Christianity. You might have across a necklace. I have a cross tattoo. Yeah, yeah, Jesus died on a cross. That's how it works.

Stop and think about that for a second.

I have a good friend who's in prison right now. Who watches our church service every single week and he tells me that when this camera over here is on, and I'm preaching, what he sees behind me is the cross. And on the top of the Cross, he sees that little sign. And the other day, when I was visiting him, he said Pastor Mike what? What exactly does that mean?

I have no clue what that is. He said, good question.

The Bible says that when Jesus was put on the cross the Roman Governor Pontius. Pilate put this sign above his head. It was written in multiple languages. One of the languages was Latin and the sign said Jesus, not Serenus Rex. You the Orem.

Which is short for, Jesus of Nazareth, the king. Of the Jews.

And pilot was kind of, right? Jesus was the king of the Jews, but not just that He should have said, Jesus Dominus Rex Mundi. Jesus. Lord. King of the world.

But but in either case, if you see that sign, you should say, what?

A king.

Is on a cross.

Can you imagine like the British prime minister or the U.S president sitting in an electric chair?

No, no, no no. Though, people with power and wealth Escape such shameful endings. They hire lawyers and find a legal loopholes, they go into Exile or take their private Jets to their private island somewhere safe. How would the king of the world? The king of the Jews Jesus end up on a cross?

And there's only one glorious answer.

If he loved you, and he loved me so deeply and desperately.

He would choose the worst ending. So that you and I could have the best ending.

I mean if a dude who could raise the dead walk on water and make disabled people stand up and pick up that he had. A couple of nails would have been preschool Miracles for Jesus. He could have ripped them out. Laser beam from his eyes every Roman Soldier. Instead, he just sat there.

God. With all the power coursing through his veins. He just sat there.

Because deep within the heart of God, was this desire to be reconciled to you?

To take all the sin, all the mistakes, all the shame.

So you and God could be good again. God and Sinners reconciled. Is what the life and death of Jesus is all about.

And the people who witnessed it. The Roman soldiers, who saw thousands of corpses on crosses. They knew something was different about Jesus.

Mark 15. Says this, when the Centurion, the Roman soldier who stood there in front of Jesus saw how he died. Obviously innocent. Sacrificial selfless forgiving with his last breaths, when he saw how he died. He said, surely this man was The Son of God.

But every time you see a manger, say what?

Every time you hear a miracle say, whoa. And every time I pray that you see a cross, you shake your head and say it.

Wow. A God who's so full of love that he would do that for me.

Finally, number five.

The fifth Glorious thing is that Jesus rose.

The simple fact not how he rose or exactly when he rose, but Jesus was medically dead. And then he stopped being dead.

Can you imagine if you want to Uncle Bob's funeral and you went up to say hi and popped out of the casket? It was a normal. No, you'd say what? Wow, but that's exactly what happened to Jesus.

Just in case you're new to Christianity. We don't say that like Jesus can arose spiritually or emotionally in our hearts. We're saying that his brain waves and heartbeat and lungs took a few days off. And then I got back to work. Jesus conquered death. He wanted to prove, he really was the king of the world and the Son of God. He wanted to prove that the sacrifice of the Cross reconciled you to God and so he did what no one else could do he predicted and then pulled off his own resurrection?

The angel broke the news in the last chapter of Matthew. Angel said to Jesus's friends. He's not here. He has risen, just as He said.

Man, Jesus. Does it get any more glorious?

But Jesus. When I step back and think that my God would leave the Perfection of Heaven to come here. That he won't be born in a palace.

But in a, like, Just a barn. Surrounded by Barnyard animals. When I think about a manger across an empty tomb, I have to step back. Even after 40 plus years and say, wow. There's no one in the world, like Jesus.

So, I have some holiday homework for you.

This holiday season this Christmas season in order to just stay in this, wow Zone with Jesus Christ. The son of God, I want you to pretend That you were there.

When you hear the story, when you read it to the kids at home, I want you to pick a character and just think what it must have been like

Imagine you're a Shepherd.

Watching, sheep put a third. I didn't even have Tick Tock to scroll. He's sat there and watch sheep until

Glory feels disguise angels. They've never seen an angel before and they hurried off. Can you imagine what it must have been like to step into the room and see just as they had been told. He is, he looks just like one of us, but he is so much more, he's Christ, the Lord, the savior of the world,

Or maybe your mom’s are going to pretend that you're married.

For water breaks.

And she goes through all the ups and downs the Agony and the ecstasy of childbirth except this time when she holds that little one in her arms. When she looks at that face, it's not just her son, it's the son. It's God.

Or maybe you're going to be Joseph when the wise men show up.

Probably happened. When Jesus was about a year and a half by the way. I mean, imagine you're sitting there you're helping your toddler toddler around with this chunky, little hands and feet. When a couple of strange men in foreign robes, walk through the door and lay chunks of gold at little Jesus's feet as he pick them up in his little toddler hands.

And you're Joseph saying, It's true.

It's true, my stepson.

Is actually the one that the world is waiting to worship.

You pick a person, put yourself in their shoes and just imagine you'll start to feel maybe like John filled, I've heard this before, but I can't get used to it and I can't just be okay with it. I'm wowed in Wonder and worship. As I think about Jesus.

If that doesn't work.

If you could just go to the world's largest library.

The Library of Congress in Washington. D.C is currently the world's largest library. Get this fun fact. It has 532 miles of bookshelves.

110 million different volumes, the world's largest library and back in 1999. A CIA analyst named Peter Dixon wanted to see who was mentioned the most. In the world's largest library, he did. A complex, computerized analysis of tens of millions of volumes, and here's what he discovered

In the world's largest library. There are 400 and seven books about Napoleon.

2742 books about George Washington.

2446 books about the Buddha 1583 books about Gandhi. And when you add all of those books together,

And add all the books about Nietzsche and all the books about Freud and all the books about Mozart and all the books about Beethoven. When you stack, all those books on top of each other, they still do not reach the number of books written about the most famous person in the world's largest library his name. Is Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary, the son of God, the world's biggest library, proclaims, his bigness, and his glory. And I hope and I pray that this Christmas. Your heart does too.

Best Gifts Ever - Week 2 - The CORE - Pastor Mike Novotny
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