Christmas at Rock Point 2022 | Full Service · Rewind

Christmas at Rock Point 2022 | Full Service · Rewind

Pastor Bill Bush · Dec 25, 2022

Big Idea

Christmas hope isn't found in fixing our immediate circumstances — it's found in the incarnate Jesus, who came to rescue us from our real enemy: our own sin.

Christmas is meant to give us hope that goes beyond our circumstances, but many people look for that hope in the wrong place — in fixed relationships, jobs, or politics. The real hope came as a baby, not a warrior king, because our biggest problem was never external; it was our separation from God through sin, and only Jesus could rescue us from that.

Key points

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1Christmas is supposed to bring hope despite our circumstances, not because of them.
Pastor Bill notes that even though people expect joy at Christmas, it's often a season of depression, and many are chasing hope in their circumstances instead of finding a hope that stands apart from them.
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2The story of John McPhee and the Santa parachute disaster shows what happens when we lean on the wrong source of hope.
In 1932, during the Great Depression, Mesa newspaper editor John McPhee wanted to give the town hope by having Santa parachute into the Christmas parade. When the stunt went horribly wrong and the parachute failed, it became a disaster remembered for decades, illustrating a right desire for hope built on the wrong thing.
3
3We often treat our relationship with God as a contract: be good, and God rewards us with the immediate things we want.
Pastor Bill describes people who serve, attend church, or try to be good, expecting God to fix their circumstances, and who grow bitter or doubt God when He doesn't deliver on that unspoken deal.
4
4After 400 years of prophetic silence, God's people expected a political rescuer, but He sent a baby instead.
Pastor Bill walks through Malachi's promise of coming justice and rescue, and how the Jewish people filled that silence with hopes of a warrior king who would fix their government and oppression — only for the sign of the Messiah to be a baby wrapped in cloths.
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5Joseph's story shows the choice between pursuing the immediate and trusting God's harder, incarnate plan.
Pastor Bill retells Matthew 1: Joseph could have quietly divorced Mary to avoid disgrace and keep his life easy, but an angel told him not to be afraid and to trust God's plan, even though it would make his life more complicated, not less.
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6Jesus came as a baby because our real enemy is our own sin, not our external circumstances.
Pastor Bill explains that the angel told Joseph to name the child Jesus because He would save His people from their sins — the deepest problem is that we are all separated from a perfect God, and only Jesus, living the perfect life and taking God's justice on Himself, could fix that.
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7We can't make ourselves acceptable to God by managing or minimizing our sin — we have to hand it all over to Him.
Using the story of sawing his broken hot tub into small pieces to make it look acceptable for bulk trash pickup, Pastor Bill shows how we try to break our sin into manageable, excusable pieces instead of simply confessing it and letting God take the whole burden away.

Application

Pastor Bill's charge is to stop trying to manage your own sin and instead call out to God, trusting His plan over your own attempts to make life work.

Stop pursuing the immediate over the incarnate
Recognize when you're chasing God for fixed circumstances (job, relationships, politics) rather than trusting His actual plan for your life, even when that plan is harder.
Confess your sin instead of managing it
Like breaking a broken hot tub into acceptable-looking pieces, stop minimizing or hiding your sin — bring it out into the open before God honestly.
Call out to Jesus in faith
Pray and put your trust in Jesus, admitting you are a sinner separated from God and accepting His offer of love and rescue through the cross.
Learn to live from God's love, not for it
Whatever your circumstances going forward, trust God with more areas of your life not to earn His love, but because He has already loved you completely.

Take it into your week

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7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

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Day 1

Related passage

Four hundred years is a long time to wait. Between the last word of Malachi and the first chapter of Matthew, there was silence — no prophet, no burning bush, no parting sea. From the outside, it could look like God had stepped away. But the sermon reminded us this week that silence is not the same as absence. God was moving His plan forward the entire time, even when no one recognized it. That is worth sitting with. We tend to measure God's activity by what we can see and feel right now. When circumstances are hard or prayers seem unanswered, the temptation is to assume He has gone quiet on us personally. But Malachi 4 closes with a promise still in motion — the Sun of righteousness rising with healing in His wings. God was not stalling. He was setting the stage for something the world had never seen: His own Son, wrapped in human skin. Christmas begins here, in the waiting. And the waiting itself is part of the story. If you are in a season where God feels distant, that feeling is real and it is human. But the history of Scripture says His plan does not pause when our circumstances get complicated. He is still moving, still faithful, still working toward what is eternal — even when you cannot see it yet.

For reflection

Where in your life right now does it feel like God has gone silent, and what would it mean to trust that He is still at work?

Pray

Pray for the faith to trust God's faithfulness during seasons of waiting and silence.

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

The Christmas story is familiar to almost everyone — but this message pushes on something we might not expect: what if the thing we want God to fix at Christmas isn't actually the problem He came to solve?

Discussion questions

1
In Matthew 1:18-24, Joseph has a clear, socially acceptable way out of a very complicated situation — and he chooses the harder path instead. What do you think made that choice so difficult, and what does it tell us about what it looks like to trust God's plan over an easier one?
2
Matthew 1:21 says Jesus came to save His people from their sins — not from Roman occupation, poverty, or other immediate hardships His people were experiencing. What does that gap between what people wanted and what God actually did tell us about how God sees our situation?
3
Pastor Bill made a distinction between living *for* God's love — trying to earn His favor — and living *from* His love — receiving what Jesus already accomplished as a gift. How would you describe the difference between those two postures in practical, everyday terms?
4
Pastor Bill described a tendency to break sin into smaller, more manageable-looking pieces rather than bringing the whole thing before God — and he called bringing it all out into the open "confession." What do you think makes that kind of honesty before God so hard for people?
5
The message points out that 400 years of silence between Malachi and Matthew didn't mean God had stepped away — He was still moving His plan forward. How might that reframe the way we think about seasons when God seems quiet or slow to act?
Related passage
6
Pastor Bill's central point is that Christmas is ultimately about God solving the one problem that outlasts every circumstance: our sin and its eternal consequences. How might holding onto that change the way we approach God — especially when we're carrying something hard?

Pray together

Gratitude that God didn't wait for us to get it right — that He came to us, as one of us, to do what we couldn't do for ourselves

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Topics

Christmas Grace Over Works Sin and Salvation The Incarnation Trusting God's Plan

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