Ugly Sweater | Week 1 · Rewind

Pastor Bill Bush · Dec 3, 2018 · 67 min watch · 3 min read

Ugly Sweater | Week 1

Big Idea

Christmas is about a mission, not a moment — a mission God accomplished for us that He wants to continue through us.

Drawing from John 1, this sermon argues that Christmas is far more than a seasonal feeling or a collection of holiday moments. It is the mission of God — who, in His unfailing love and faithfulness, entered the world He created to restore light and life to broken humanity. Just as John the Baptist was called to point others to Jesus and the first disciples were invited to 'come and see,' every follower of Jesus is called into that same ongoing mission. When we fixate on the moment — what we want right now — we miss the greater things God has prepared for those who trust His mission.

Key points

1
1Christmas begins not in Bethlehem but 'in the beginning' — Jesus, the Word, is the eternal Creator who entered His own creation to restore light and life.
2
2The darkness can never extinguish the light — no matter how dark your season feels, the mission of Jesus is greater than any moment of despair.
3
3John the Baptist models the mission: his job — and ours — is to be a witness who points others to Jesus, not to make the mission about ourselves.
4
4When Jesus asks 'What do you want?' He is probing a deeper question: What is your expectation of where following Him is supposed to take you?
5
5Jesus' invitation — 'Come and see' — calls us past moment-level thinking (give me something, take something away) into a missional life of greater things.
6
6The 'greater things' Jesus promised are rooted in His unfailing love and faithfulness — ultimately the cross — which is the stairway that reconnects humanity to God.
7
7God's gift to us is not a toy for the moment but a tool for eternity — and like the first disciples and Philip, we are sent to invite others to 'come and see' Jesus.

Application

The pastor's challenge is personal and direct: Why are you following Jesus? Why are you here? Most of us default to moment-level answers — give me something I want, take away something I don't. But Jesus is asking a deeper question about mission and expectation. The invitation is to surrender those moment-driven expectations, trust His unfailing love and faithfulness, and simply choose to 'come and see' where He leads. That means moving past a seasonal faith that gets packed away in January and stepping into the ongoing mission — being a witness who points others to Jesus, just as John the Baptist did and just as Philip did when he told Nathaniel, 'Come and see.' Christmas isn't something you celebrate and put away. It is the mission you were made for.

Take it into your week

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7-day devotional

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Before the manger, before Bethlehem, before any of it — there was the Word. John doesn't open his Gospel with a birth announcement; he opens it with a declaration about eternity. 'In the beginning the Word already existed.' Christmas, then, isn't the start of something. It's the arrival of Someone who was already there at the very foundation of everything. The light and life John describes aren't seasonal feelings — they are the character of Jesus Himself, woven into the fabric of creation from the very beginning. This matters because it reframes what we're actually celebrating. We aren't just marking a holiday or honoring a tradition. We are standing inside the story of the eternal God choosing, in love, to enter the world He made. That world was broken — and He came anyway. That's not sentiment. That's mission. The sermon pointed here on purpose: if Christmas begins 'in the beginning,' then it can't be something you unpack in December and put back in a box in January. It's the opening movement of a mission that is still unfolding — one you and I are invited to be part of right now, today, wherever we are.

For reflection

How does it change the way you approach Christmas — or your faith in general — to see Jesus not as a seasonal figure but as the eternal Word who entered His own creation on purpose?

Pray

Pray for fresh eyes to see Jesus as He truly is — eternal, present, and actively at work — not just as a figure tied to one season of the year.

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Think about the last time something surprised you by being far bigger than you expected it to be. This message suggests that Christmas is exactly that kind of surprise — not a moment to be celebrated and packed away, but a mission that stretches from eternity past all the way into our ordinary lives.

Discussion questions

1
John 1:1-5 opens by placing Jesus — 'the Word' — not in Bethlehem but 'in the beginning,' as the eternal Creator who entered His own creation. What does that framing add to the way we understand what is actually happening at Christmas?
2
John 1:6-8 introduces John the Baptist with a very specific job description: he was not the light, but a witness sent to point others to the light. What does that distinction tell us about what it looks like to make a mission about something larger than yourself?
3
In John 1:38, Jesus turns to the disciples who are following Him and asks, 'What do you want?' The message frames that as a deeper question about expectation — not just an immediate request but what someone hopes following Jesus is ultimately going to lead to. What kinds of expectations do people tend to bring to that question?
4
Jesus responds to the disciples with 'Come and see' rather than a direct answer, and Philip uses those same words when he tells Nathaniel about Jesus in John 1:45-46. What does that repeated invitation suggest about how the mission of God tends to move from one person to the next?
5
The message drew a contrast between 'moment-level' faith — give me something I want, take away something I don't — and a missional life oriented around 'greater things.' How might a community of people who have made that shift actually look different from the outside?
6
John 1:5 says the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never extinguished it. The message connected that promise to the 'greater things' Jesus points toward — ultimately the cross — as the foundation of God's unfailing love and faithfulness. How does anchoring that hope in who Jesus is, rather than in a particular outcome, change the way we might hold onto it together?

Pray together

Asking God to loosen our grip on moment-level expectations and to give us eyes to see — and courage to follow — the greater things He has prepared for those who trust His mission

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Ugly Sweater

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