Andy Stanley | Reasons for the Season Pt. 1 | Pastor Reacts

If the world is better off because of Jesus, shouldn't our world and our communities be better off because of Jesus' followers?

If Jesus is the light of the world, shouldn't our collective presence in the world make the world brighter?

I mean, it's probably too late by now, but still, anything that even points the car in the direction of the gospel.

Here, I'll help. This, he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.

Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing.

Amen? Come on, somebody. Why do we celebrate, Christians? Because Jesus was born in a manger to give eternal life to his sheep and his sheep will never perish and no one will be able to snatch them out of his hand.

Somebody's gotta preach this. Merry Christmas, and welcome back to another

Pastor Reacts video. My name is Nate. I'm the president of Wise Disciple. We are an organization dedicated to helping you become the effective

Christian that you were meant to be. Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 10, 16 that he's sending them out as sheep in the midst of wolves so they should be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

What does that mean for Jesus' disciples today? Well, we're exploring that on this channel, so be sure to check out the other videos that I have for you.

Got a lot here, and I hope that they will bless you. Today, I'll be reacting to Andy Stanley's Christmas message.

This just dropped about two weeks ago as of this recording. It's called Reasons for the

Seasons Part One. I'm not too familiar with Stanley, so just a couple things I know about him.

When I was coming up as a pastor years ago, my mentor had me read one of Stanley's books. It's called

Communicating for a Change. To be honest, I don't even remember one thing about that book at the moment, so I did hear that Stanley got into a kerfuffle a couple years back when he suggested that we should unhitch the

Old Testament from our faith or something like that. Again, just telling you all the things that I know of Stanley and that's about it.

I've never seen him preach, but I am looking forward to hearing the word preached, so let's get right into it.

Good morning, everybody, and Merry Christmas. Thanks for joining us from wherever you're joining us from.

No doubt you have already seen or you will soon begin to see the signs and the bumper stickers and the clings that say,

Jesus is the reason for the season. You may have already seen one of these. In fact, you may have one of these on your car or somewhere on a

Christmas decoration in your house. And I certainly appreciate the sentiment behind this, that Jesus versus the commercialization of Christmas.

Let's keep Christ in Christmas. Jesus is the reason that we celebrate Christmas. But if Jesus was correct, and of course

I think Jesus was certainly correct. And if the authors of the New Testament were correct, and I certainly think they were correct as well, it may be more accurate to say that you are the reason for the season and you are the reason for the season and I'm the reason for the season because without us, there would be no

Christmas or more. Oh boy.

I mean, this is what we're leading off with here. So I've said this before. Every pastor is faced with how to begin and there are various ways to do that.

You could start with a story, you could start with a statistic or an illustration. I mean, whatever it is, the pastor's beginning is meant to kind of set the table for the whole sermon.

Now, a lot of pastors, I've even done this in the past myself, they'll give you the main idea like right out of the gate.

Nothing wrong with that. I think that's great. And so for Stanley, plainly speaking, this is his main idea.

Jesus is not the reason for the season, you are. Except wait, what? I mean, there are so many potential issues that arise when you say something like that, right?

First and foremost, the focus of our celebration moves away from the incarnation of Jesus, which is exactly what we

Christians have been celebrating for centuries. The only way that a right relationship with God can be had is because God himself came to earth and accomplished for us what we could never do for ourselves.

The focus of our celebration is Jesus. Take that away and shift the focus to us and that's the main message today?

I don't see how this can go well at all. The point, if we weren't such a mess, right?

If we weren't such a mess, no Christmas. For God so loved this rebel race. We talk about this all the time.

For God so loved this rebel race that he actually moved in our direction, sent us a savior. So maybe, and this is probably a terrible idea, some new clings or some new bumper stickers or maybe some new

Christmas tree ornaments are in order. Maybe one that says, I'm the reason for the season.

That'll get you in trouble. Or if you don't like - Yeah, it'll get you in trouble because it's absolutely absurd.

See, it's not wrong to say that God came to earth because he loved us, right? That's biblical.

The problem is, what are we celebrating on Christmas? I think that's an essential question that you have to ask.

Are we celebrating Jesus coming to earth to save us? Think of all the traditional

Christmas carols because I think they capture this nicely, right? Joy to the world, the Lord has come.

Let earth receive her King, right? Joy to the world, the Savior reigns.

Repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy. That's the gospel, friends. Now, what are we supposed to say?

I mean, based on this tweak by Stanley, what are we supposed to celebrate now? So here's how the author of Genesis begins the story of Christmas, the backstory to the

Christmas story. It says this, it says, the Lord God said to Abram, who will eventually become

Abraham, I want you to go from your country and your people and your father's household to the land that I will show you.

Now, we're not told why God chose Abram, just as we're not told why God specifically chose

Joseph and Mary, but what - Yes, we are, sure we are.

God says why he chose Abram. He reveals his reasons a few times through the promises that he articulates to Abram.

Now, the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse, and in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Why did God choose Abram? Not because of Abram, you know, because Abram was special or he had some kind of unique feature that set him apart from all other human beings at the time.

No, it was because of God's plans for humanity. God wanted to bless all the families of the earth, and he wanted to do so through one man and his family.

What does that mean? Look at Genesis chapter 22, when the angel of the Lord stopped Abraham from killing Isaac. By myself,

I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son,

I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore, and your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in, here it is, in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice.

Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son, but God stops him and sets the stage for the lamb that only

God can provide, and the nations will be blessed through Abraham. Why? Because Abraham obeyed

God's voice. He believed God and he obeyed him. Galatians explains that those who believe in Jesus Christ are sons of Abraham because his belief in God was counted as righteousness.

So again, why did God choose Abraham? Because God decided that Jesus and the gospel message would flow through this man.

Because Abraham was special? No, because God's favor on mankind is special. See, I think this helps us to understand

Stanley's comments about Christmas. It's the same principle applied. It's not that we are special.

And that's why Jesus came to earth and was born in human flesh. It's because God's favor on mankind is special.

That God would even make the promises he made to his creation is what's special. And that puts all the attention, it puts all the focus on Jesus Christ, which is where it should be.

We do know, we don't know why God chose him, but here's what we do know. In ancient times, somewhat like modern times, but even more so, in ancient times, a person's country, a person's people, and a person's household represented security and protection.

And God says to this man that he seemingly just chose because he just needed somebody to get this thing kicked off.

He says to Abraham, I want you to leave essential. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. God just needed this guy to get something kicked off.

Boy, you know, there's something about the way that Stanley is speaking.

Stanley is speaking in a very creaturely way about the divine.

He's not speaking about God the way that the Bible speaks about God. And I get it, you know, the preaching pastor wants the congregation to not only hear the sermon, but also connect, relate to the sermon, engage with the sermon.

And that does require attuning your language in such a way to be relatable. But those sermonic tricks of the trade, they have boundaries to it, all right?

You can't just say whatever you want as a representative of the Lord and his word. If you're gonna talk about the

Lord, pastor, preacher, teacher, you need to do it the way that his word does. God doesn't need anything.

He does what he does for us because of his magnificent grace and love. That's it.

1 ,600 years. It's very difficult for us to get our minds around this time period. 1 ,600 years, 1 ,600 years after God makes the promise to Abraham, 1 ,600 years later,

God sends another prophet, the prophet Malachi. And again, if we were living in that day and age, if we were living within Judea or even what would be

Galilee, we would hear these words and we think, this is impossible. This is insulting.

Malachi comes along and he says this, don't give up hope. Don't surrender hope. Don't quit believing.

And to which, you know, the people are like, what Malachi says, my name, again,

God's speaking to the prophet, my name will be great among the nations.

The people of Israel are like, if they'd had an opportunity to respond, they would say, no, it won't.

You don't understand. So Stanley has given basically an overview of the nation of Israel from Abraham all the way up to Malachi.

It took a while to get here, several minutes. And what Stanley is trying to show is that God's promises appear to be unfulfillable.

Not only that they're not fulfilled, but that they're unfulfillable. They seem too impossible, too out of step with what's really happening on the ground.

Through Abraham and the nation of Israel, all the people of the world will be blessed. That can't be.

I think that this aspect of the sermon where Stanley walks through the history of the nation of Israel, kind of giving that historical context to what it is that he wants to get to.

He hasn't gotten there yet, but where he wants to go first, he's flavoring his message. He's seasoning it with the historical context.

I think that's all pretty solid. I wouldn't have spent so much time on the history of the nation of Israel to make the point that Stanley is ultimately making.

I mean, I think you can do it in lesser time. I mean, basically half the sermon is gone now and he hasn't even gotten to Jesus yet.

So let's just hope that he gets there soon. If we'd shown up in that part of the story, if we'd hit pause and reflected on what

God told Abraham, three things were absolutely clear. All the nations, all the nations would not be blessed through Abraham.

Israel would not be a light to the Gentiles. And clearly, clearly their

God would not be worshiped throughout the world because nobody was interested in a

God who was too weak to take care of his own people. And then, then when things were as hopeless as they could have possibly been, then when

God's promise to Abraham was completely and hopelessly out of reach, God moved.

I don't, I don't want to keep stopping this video and just parsing everything that Stanley is saying here. I'm trying to balance my criticisms with good things to say.

I think Stanley is a good speaker. I think that he can hold the attention of his audience well.

I think he sets up where he's going very clearly. These are all excellent qualities in a preacher and teacher.

So it's not his particular style that I clash with. I think it's what he's saying specifically that I take issue with.

I just wouldn't be saying the things that he's saying. I don't think that it was totally hopeless in the first century.

I think that there was a messianic expectation that was palpable when

Jesus was born. You know, I think everyone was doing the math on Daniel's vision, all the way going back to Daniel chapter nine and realizing that they were coming up on the time when the

Messiah would come. On top of that, I think what Judah Maccabee did to push out the Seleucids and reconsecrate the temple in Jerusalem was still relatively fresh.

I mean, that was only 100, 150 years before Jesus. That's how we get the celebration of Hanukkah.

That's how it got started really, which by the way, Jesus also participated in the celebration of Hanukkah. So, you know,

Simeon showed up when Jesus was born and prayed over him because he was told by God that he would not die until the

Messiah came. I just don't agree that it was totally hopeless, that everyone thought

God would not be worshiped. I would not be saying any of these things at the pulpit.

Perhaps the reason God waited so long was a political reason. Perhaps God was making somewhat of a political point, namely that the kingdoms, the kingdoms of this world, the kingdoms of this world do not have the capacity to bless the world, only rule the world.

I mean, you remember what Jesus said. These are my words, not his. No, thank you. No, thank you.

That's not why I've come. I've not come to assume command. I've not come to assume command of a network of failed kingdoms, filled with peacekeepers, but not peacemakers.

I've not come to conquer the world. I've come to bless the world by giving my life for the world, to demonstrate the way forward for the world.

Okay, we're about six minutes away from the end of the entire sermon, all right?

Pastors, preachers, teachers, they all have a process to follow when they get up and preach, and a lot of this stuff fits together.

It's kind of like they lay on top of each other and they act as a grid to help the preaching pastor figure out how to approach the scripture, how to talk about it, how to shape the sermon that they're going to give.

I've talked about this before in previous videos, but the goal of the preacher is to relay God's revelation in a manner that is glorifying to God and transformative to the listener.

Better people have said it in different ways. I'm not saying anything novel or new. This is just the way

I say it, right? That's the goal of the preacher. The job of the preacher is threefold. The preacher is answering essentially three questions in a sermon.

Number one, what does the Bible say? Number two, what does the Bible mean? And number three, how can we all live by it?

So whether you're giving an expository sermon, which are the sermons that I gave more often than not at the pulpit, or whether you're giving a topical sermon, which is what it looks like Stanley is doing here, it doesn't matter.

You still need to lay all of these things out on the table and use them as a grid to prepare accordingly.

Now, when you think about a Christmas sermon as a preaching pastor, you have to answer some key questions.

And I mentioned these at the outset, right? Why is Christmas special? Why do we celebrate

Christmas? If someone has come to church for the first time, which let's face it, a lot of folks only come to church for Christmas and Easter, right?

That's it. And pastors know this. They know the unique opportunity that these holidays provide to share the gospel.

And so pastors should be thinking, why should first -time churchgoers, along with everyone else, honor and revere not only the birth of Christ, but his life, his ministry, and his death and resurrection?

And see, I'm already starting to answer these questions, right? We can't celebrate the birth of Christ until we truly appreciate the death of Christ.

Or else, what are we talking about up here? Why get up to the pulpit and just start talking to preach a

Christmas message, unless we shine a huge spotlight on the death and resurrection of Jesus?

So far, I haven't heard anything about sin, what sin does to separate people from the creator who made them, what

Christ's sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead did to restore right relationship with God again.

I mean, what do you think Jesus' title, Prince of Peace, is all about? You think it means that Jesus came to earth so we could feel fuzzy deep down in places we don't like to talk about at parties?

No, peace means shalom. Shalom means God is putting back together what was once broken, what once was broken all the way back going to the

Garden of Eden. What was broken? Us. We became broken, and we did it to ourselves.

And this brokenness keeps us from returning to Eden and having a relationship with God the way that we once did.

That's why Christmas is so special for us. That's why Jesus is the focus of Christmas, not us.

A 2 ,000 -year saga. Fascinating, amazing, inspiring.

But it's also, if you stop and think about it, it's also a bit convicting. And here's why I say that.

And as I thought about this story, and every time I think about it, it is so unimaginable, but it's so real, and it so happened.

As I think about it, I think about the implications for me, and I think, honestly, I think about the implications for us.

I think about the implications for the church at large and for men and women who call themselves Christians and for the pockets of people who consider themselves

Jesus followers. The implications are this. If the arrival of Jesus was a blessing to the world, shouldn't

Jesus followers be a blessing to the world as well? Okay, so now we see why

Stanley started off so controversially all the way back at the beginning. Jesus is not the reason for the season.

You are the reason for the season. Why does he say that? Well, because Jesus was a blessing, and therefore, we should be a blessing to the people around us.

Now, I don't know how you're going to unpack the theology of God's blessing to the world through the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus in the time that Stanley has left, so he better talk quick, but that's why

Stanley shaped the words the way that he did. It was meant to get us right to this point and to challenge all of us to be a blessing this

Christmas. God said to Abraham that then said, the angel said to Mary, if the arrival of Jesus was intended to be a blessing and turned out to be a blessing to the world, should not

Jesus followers be a blessing to the world as well? Are we?

Am I? Are you? If, think about it this way, if the world is better off because of Jesus, shouldn't our world and our communities be better off because of Jesus followers?

Is it? And if Jesus is the light of the world, shouldn't our collective presence in the world make the world brighter?

What do any of these terms mean, right? Blessing, light, you know, make the world brighter.

What does any of this mean in the way that the Bible teaches it? I know that Stanley's gotta be thinking, right?

There are many people that for the very first time are at this church or for the very first time, they're streaming this wherever, right?

Wherever they're getting it. They're gonna come to church, they're gonna listen to this sermon. That means it's so imperative that these words are defined or else this sermon is going to fall way flat.

Does it? And does it matter? And the answer is, of course it matters.

It matters a great deal. And these are good questions for us to ask. These are good questions for us to ask individually as Jesus followers.

And these are good questions to ask as a group of churches. And these are especially good questions to ask at this time of the year.

Good questions to wrestle with. And from where I sit, if I had to answer those questions specifically for us.

Go ahead, please do so. Let's do it. And if you're not normally a part of our online chat, and if you're not part of one of our local churches around the city, the state, and really around the world, this may sound a little bit strange, but I'll say it anyway.

From where I sit, you are a blessing to your community and you are a light in our world.

And people in your communities and in our neighborhoods and in the areas surrounding our churches, people really are better off because of you.

And the reason is not because you're extraordinary or remarkable any more than Abraham was remarkable or extraordinary.

The reason is because you have chosen not to be content with simply believing things about Jesus, but you have decided to follow

Jesus and to live out the values of Jesus and to embrace the way of Jesus.

And whenever a community of people come together and do that. Still waiting for the gospel. Still waiting for the redemption of mankind that the world so desperately needs to hear.

Time is ticking away. I mean, it's probably too late by now, but still anything that even points the car in the direction of the gospel.

Here, I'll help. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.

And you who were dead in your trespasses in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.

Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her King. Let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing.

Amen. Come on, somebody. Why do we celebrate, Christians? Because Jesus was born in a manger to give eternal life to his sheep and his sheep will never perish and no one will be able to snatch them out of his hand.

Somebody's got to preach this. So at Christmas, God blessed the world with a different kind of King.

We talk about that all the time, who came to establish a different kind of kingdom, an upside down kingdom, an others first kingdom.

And wherever and whenever his followers come together to live that out and to embrace and live out that simple kingdom, others first ethic, the world is a better and blessed place.

But as it turns out to bless the world was just one of three reasons God gave us Christmas.

And we're gonna talk about the second one next time in part two of reasons for the season.

Okay, so this is a three part series. I'm just taking it all in.

Look, I hope Stanley finally gets there, all right? Unfortunately, even if he does get there in another part of this series, he didn't do it here.

And he absolutely must, in my opinion, he absolutely must talk about the gospel.

Jesus took on human flesh and became a man in order to die so that we might live. And not just live in some vague, ambiguous blessing and be a bright light sense, but to live for eternity with God, even here and now.

John 17 three, Jesus said, this is eternal life. Not being in heaven later when you're dead, but knowing the one true

God and Jesus Christ to me ascent. That's what we can experience right now as followers of Jesus Christ.

That's what we can share with the rest of the world. That's the nature of the blessing that we can give to the rest of the world.

Should we help others that they can be warm and filled this Christmas season? Absolutely. But what good is blessing other people without showing them eternal life through Jesus Christ?

That's like putting a Band -Aid on a bullet wound. Look, I'm not a fan of this sermon.

I think it's seriously lacking just about every necessary component that goes into a Christmas sermon.

Primarily the gospel. The gospel is nowhere to be found in this message. I hope

Stanley course corrects in parts two and three because my sincere hope is, well, it's really not to dunk on Stanley, but to have the gospel preached from God's word.

That's what gets me so excited. And that should be your sincere hope as well. What did you think of Stanley's message?

Do you agree? Do you disagree with me? Let me know in the comments below. I will return soon with more videos along these lines, but in the meantime,