You know, I was reading in USA Today and there was a very interesting article by Dr. Jefferson Singer. He is a psychologist and the title of his article was, The Antidote to the Holiday Blues. And in this article he talks a little bit about how reporters call him up every year at Christmas and ask him as a psychologist about why people get the blues at Christmas, why depression is so prevalent at Christmas, and what can be done about it. It's a very interesting article, but I was fascinated by the way he concluded the article. Here's what he said. He said, and I quote, What we treatment providers, what all of us need to see, is that every person, no matter how infirmed, troubled, or isolated, every person wants to be needed, every person wants to be wanted, and every person wants to know that they matter.
End of quote. And you know, as a pastor for over 30 years, I'd like to say that I totally agree with the assessment of Dr. Singer. In order to live a healthy, wholesome, balanced life, it's true, this feeling that we have value, this feeling that we have worth, this feeling that we matter is essential.
But here's the real question, my friends. How do we as people become convinced that we really matter, that we really have worth? I mean, is having a psychiatrist or a psychologist or a treatment provider like Dr. Singer tell us this? Is that enough to convince us? Or is going to a seminar, some self-help seminar or watching some infomercial on TV, will that convince us? Or will reading some self-help book convince us? Well, in my experience, the answer is no. In my experience, these things are not enough to convince us in our soul that this is true. To be convinced, we have to see this fact demonstrated in the actions of others.
We have to see other people feel that we matter enough that they're willing to step up and pay a price, some kind of price in some way for us. I saw an article a while back in Parade magazine about some teenage boys who had a friend in high school that was going through chemotherapy for cancer. And of course, he lost all of his hair and felt incredibly vulnerable, incredibly embarrassed to come to school bald. And so what they did, these friends of his, they all went out one day and every one of them shaved their heads so that there was now eight or nine of them all coming to school completely bald. Well, what did that communicate to that young man who was going through the chemotherapy treatments? Well, it communicated to him that he mattered to these people. They were willing to give up their hair to prove to him that he made a difference to them.
That's what I'm talking about. That's how we become convinced of this. Now, friends, there are a lot of important messages that God wanted to communicate to us in the events of Christmas, many messages. But one of the messages that he wanted to communicate to us is the very message we're talking about today, that we matter to God. Listen, Romans chapter five, verse eight. Listen to what the Bible says. It says, God demonstrated. I want us to stop there. God demonstrated.
What a great word. God publicly displayed for everybody to see. God did something, paid a price to convince us. He demonstrated the kind of love he has for us in that while we were yet sinners, Jesus Christ came into this world for us and died for us. You know, the only reason the first Christmas happened in Bethlehem, my friends, two thousand years ago, the only reason is because every single one of us sitting here today matters to God.
The only reason the first Christmas happened is because every single human being to have ever lived on this earth matters to God. And listen, you may never have mattered to anybody else in your life. You may feel that way.
You may feel like even today that you're really not worth much or that you really don't make a whole lot of difference to much of anybody. But I'm here to tell you that even if every human being in the world feels that way about you, Almighty God doesn't. And he proved it not by shaving his head.
No, no. Much more importantly, he proved it by being born in the manger of Bethlehem to go to the cross and die and be resurrected for you and me. Boy, if there's ever doubt in your mind that you matter to God, Christmas, Easter and the resurrection ought to take that away forever. Now, you know, growing up, I have to tell you and I think I've told you this before, I didn't believe I mattered to anybody. I mean, I didn't think I mattered to my dad. I never saw my dad. He was never home. He never played ball with me. He never came to my little league games. He never came to school events.
I never saw him. Even when he was home, he sat in front of the television, never had a meaningful conversation with me, never took me out for ice cream or engaged me in any kind of a dialogue. My dad, I don't remember a single time in my entire life where my dad ever hugged me.
Not one time do I remember my dad ever telling me that he loved me or kissing me ever. So what would you think as a little boy? Would you think you mattered to this person? I didn't. You know, I didn't think growing up I mattered to my mom. My mom, good Jewish mother.
Yes, sir. She was never there. She was off playing Canasta and Marjong and all with all of her friends at the country club. I didn't know where she was. I didn't really even care where she was. Wherever she was, it wasn't with me. You know, we didn't sit down at the table at night and she didn't help me with my homework and she didn't go over my ABCs and she didn't help me with my multiplication tables. I mean, this woman was just not there. No, as a little child, what would you think?
Would you think you mattered to this woman? I didn't. I didn't think I mattered to my brother, my only sibling. One time he knocked me completely out, unconscious by hitting me in across the bridge of the nose with a telephone book.
The binder, you know, the hard part. I came around the corner. I didn't even see him.
All I saw was this yellow flash coming my way and the next thing I knew, I was flat on the ground, completely unconscious. That's usually not what you do to people who matter to you. I didn't believe I mattered to him. And then high school, I got transferred from my homeroom where I had gone to school with these people since elementary school. My homeroom teacher hated me. I can't say looking back much that I blame her.
My behavior was atrocious, doesn't even come close. So I understand now, but she had me transferred out of her homeroom and over into E-wing, Woodrow Wilson High School, Portsmouth, Virginia. E-wing was a bad place. Most of the people in E-wing majored in shop.
You understand what I'm saying? They made like knives for a living. Most of the people in E-wing in my high school could vote. That's how bad it was in E-wing in my high school. And I got transferred over there by my homeroom teacher. I knew nobody in E-wing. Nobody.
Plus, they were all huge. And I'm just a little tiny sophomore. And it was like every time I walked into my homeroom class, E-217, there was a little neon sign right above the door that said, you don't make a difference to anybody. Nobody cares about you.
You don't matter to anybody. I tell you friends, by the time I was 22 years old, I was a psychological nightmare. You say, well, being raised like that, I can understand why.
Well, yeah. I mean, I was a therapist's dream. People would stand, I mean, people, I mean, if they had known who I was, they would stand in line to treat me.
I mean, I could be like a published case. I was so bad. Paranoid, sociopathic. I mean, I was a mess.
Absolute mess. But at the heart of it all was not a desire to be a bad person. At the heart of it all was not a desire to do wrong and hurt other people. At the heart of it all is I was damaged because I didn't believe I mattered to anybody. Ah, maybe you feel like that.
Maybe you know what I'm talking about. But I got great news for you, friends, because at 22 years old, Jesus Christ came into my life. And at 22 years old, I began to realize I did matter to somebody. I mattered to Almighty God. God demonstrated that I mattered to Him because He sent Jesus into the world for me and for you. But if I'd have been the only person in the world, He'd have sent Him for me. And I have to tell you, friends, as it dawned on me and it dawned on me slowly, it took a while for me to really believe in my heart that I really did matter to God. But has that dawned on me?
I began thinking, you know what? If I matter to God, it doesn't make a difference whether I matter to anybody else. God runs this universe. If I matter to God, then I matter. Period. If I'm important to God, if I make a difference to God, then I make a difference.
Period. It doesn't matter what my dad did. It doesn't matter what my mother and my brother and what my high school homeroom teacher did. If God says I matter, then I matter.
And I have to tell you, that was the greatest healing power, the greatest healing force ever to enter my life, is the realization that I make a difference to God. Now, I'm not talking about an arrogant attitude about this. No, no. It's a very humbling thing to know how sick I am on the inside and yet God still cares about me. It's not an aggressive, assertive thing. No, no, no.
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a humble sense of, hey, it doesn't matter what other people think. If I matter to Jesus, then I matter.
And I can build a life on that. Folks, if you're here today to celebrate Christmas, the reason you're here is because you matter to God. If you didn't matter to God, there would be no Christmas.
Trust me. We could find some other reason to have trees and presents, but there would be no Christmas. You know why? Because if you and I didn't matter to God, Jesus wouldn't have come into this world. And if he hadn't come into this world, he wouldn't have died on the cross and he wouldn't have risen from the dead. Hey, if God really felt the way about us, the way my dad felt about me, the way my mom felt about me, the way my brother felt about me, the way my homeroom teacher felt about me, if that's really how God felt, we wouldn't even know the name of the town Bethlehem. But you see, that's not how God feels about you. It's not. Friends, the message of the manger is that God is not neutral in his feelings about you.
No, no. The message of the manger is that you and I matter deeply to God. He cares about our lives. He cares about what goes on in our lives.
He has a vested interest in us as his children. What a great thing to know. Man, you can build a wholesome life on that.
You can build a functional life on that. And I was just thinking last night as we were celebrating communion, if you were here, remember I said, let's not ask God for anything. Let's just thank him. I was just sitting up here in one of the services and thinking about what I was 40 years ago.
Man, I mean, I was a disaster. And then thinking how the Lord took that wreck of a person and built a life that I could never have dreamed of or imagined. But folks, he never could have done it without first making me believe that I made a difference to him. I hope you believe that. I know many of us believe it in our head, but it's really the healing force God wants it to be when he gets to our heart. And we're able to say, you know what, I just don't theologically believe that.
I really believe it. Almighty God cares about me and the problems of my life. And whether I get a parking space or whether I can find my lost keys, even things little as that, my God cares about me. He's not like my father, praise God. He's not like my mother, praise God. He's not like my brother, praise God, although we get along fine now. He's a believer.
He's not like my homeroom teacher. Thank God for that. And friends, if you've got a dad, a mom, a friend, a sister, a brother, a teacher, whatever who treated you like that, God is not like that. And I hope you'll believe that in your heart because God demonstrated the kind of love he has for you.
And me. In that while we were yet sinners, Jesus Christ came into this world at Christmas for you and me. Folks, if that won't pick your day up, I don't know what will.
If that won't make Christmas worth celebrating this year, I don't know what will. And I don't care what's going wrong tomorrow, the next day, the next day, the next day, I don't care. Whatever it is, car breaks, have an accident, you know, go into work, somebody trashed your computer, your hard drive crashes, you know, you trip over something and break your ankle, whatever it is.
You choke on a shrimp at lunch, whatever. Doesn't matter. As long as you know in your heart that Almighty God cares about you and that you matter to him, I maintain there is always something to rejoice about every single day. May God help us do that. Merry Christmas. Let's pray.
Dear Lord Jesus, the message of manger is not complex. And we don't need to talk about it for eight or ten hours to get the point. The point is that you are not neutral about us.
You're certainly not negative, but you're not even neutral. You love us. You care about us. We mean something to you. We matter to you.
What an astounding, astounding reality. And I pray, Lord Jesus, that you would help us believe that, not in our heads, but in our hearts. Because you demonstrated it by sending the Lord Jesus himself to come and die for us. That's how much we matter to you. Lord, I pray that that knowledge would bring joy to our life, not just on Christmas morning, but every morning. May that awareness put a glow on every day that no matter what else goes wrong, there's still a glow on that day because it's another day that we are walking with the God to whom we make a difference. So Lord, we don't say that arrogantly, and we don't say that assertively, and we don't say it in some kind of neo-pop psychology way.
No, no, no. We accept it as truth of the Bible humbly, and we bow before you and say, thank you, Jesus. I'm not sure I would matter to me if I were God. But thank you, Lord, I'm not God.
That you are, and that I matter to you. Lord, use that as a healing force in our lives for Jesus' sake. And we pray this in his name. And what did God's people say? Amen. Amen.
