Texts: Luke 2:1-7
Sunday 22nd December 2019
Brightons Parish Church

Well done boys and girls, and well done to all your leaders for helping pull it together, and the band and choir for learning the songs! Let’s show our appreciation (again) with a round of applause.
(CLAP)

A number of times in your nativity play the characters said things like:
• “everybody needs to hear about [this]”
• “the news of Jesus’ birth is sure to spread fast”
• “the story of Jesus’ birth must be kept alive forever”

And they said this because they thought that the news, the message, about Jesus was really important.

What ways can you think of telling people a message?
If you wanted to tell something to someone, how could you do that? How could you pass on a message?
(TEXT, EMAIL, TALK, WRITE)

These are all great ways of passing on a message. But before I was a minister I worked with young people, and we all know young people can be a bit loud, so I had to use this megaphone to be heard.

Will I try it out? Will I try to tell you a message with this megaphone? (TRY: GOD LOVES YOU)

Ugh, that didn’t work very well, it’s supposed to make my voice really loud! Why did it not work?…Oh, there’s something in it? If there’s something in it, then it won’t work – I probably need to take them out, right?
So, the stuff in here, is stopping you hearing the message. Maybe’s there’s stuff stopping us from telling the message about Jesus as well.

Does someone want to pull out one of the socks in here? (4 CHRISTMAS SOCKS WITH LABEL ON SIDE:
1. FEAR – fear can stop us telling others. But the message of Christmas is about God’s love for everyone, that’s really important to share.
2. DOUBT – doubt can stop us telling others. But the birth of Jesus fulfilled prophecies made hundreds of years before He came, so there’s really good reasons to believe the Christmas message.
3. BORED – being bored can stop us telling others. But the Christmas message is something to celebrate, because in Jesus we find a Saviour, we find the king of all the world.
4. NOT MY JOB – thinking that “it’s not my job” can stop us telling others. But you might be the only Christian in someone’s life, and if you don’t tell them, then no one might tell them. So, we all need to be sharing the Christmas story with anyone and everyone that we know.

And if we pull out the stuff that stops us from telling others the message about Jesus, well then, just like this empty megaphone, they will hear the message clearly.
(TRY: GOD LOVES YOU)

But people are only going to hear that message if we tell them, and to make it a wee bit easier for us all, we’ve got these little booklets to take away today – one for everybody. (EXPLAIN – FLICK THROUGH PAGES)
So, let’s not allow fear, doubt, boredom or any other excuse to stop us telling the Christmas message to someone this year – let’s help to spread the news of Jesus’ birth this Christmas, because everyone needs to know about it, and it’s so important that the message must be kept alive forever, so let’s play our part as we go from here today.

But first, let us pray.

Father God, thank You for Christmas and Your love for us, shown in Jesus.
Help us Father God, to share this wonderful news with someone else this Christmas. Give us boldness.
May we know Your joy, peace and love, and be able to share that with others. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.