In our “big event” culture, Christmas is always the biggest annual event of all. We plan for it, prepare for it and celebrate it for over a month, and it doesn’t even matter if we are believers or not. When it comes to Christmas, we all want the same thing. We want Christmas to be perfect. We have this hope that everyone will get along. We want perfect decorations, we want to give (and get) the perfect gifts, and we even want perfect desserts. After all, it’s Christmas, and isn’t Christmas supposed to be perfect? The reality is, in this imperfect world, Christmas will never be, and has never been, perfect. This week, we will take a look back at that first Christmas which was anything but perfect for Mary and for Joseph. You see, the only thing perfect about Christmas then, and Christmas now, is that perfect baby who was in the manger. God gave the world the perfect gift for an absolutely imperfect world.

A Church for all generations. Weekly Sermons from Lenexa Baptist Church.

The birth of Christ occurred under the noses of and in the presence of many people, and yet so many of those people missed it. The innkeeper missed it. The incarnation and birth of the Son of God, one of the most significant events in salvation history, occurred near or even on his own property, and yet he missed it. Maybe he was too busy with travelers or too concerned with the stuff of earth, and he missed the birth of the eternal king. The religious leaders knew all the prophecies concerning Christ, and yet when he came, they missed it. They weren’t looking for a Savior because they didn’t think they needed a Savior.

In the coming days, we will celebrate the coming of Christ who died for our sins and provided salvation, and yet so many people will miss it. Maybe like the innkeeper, they are too caught up in the earthly business of life. Maybe like the religious leaders, they miss the celebration of the Savior’s birth, because they don’t think they need a Savior.

What about you? We are in a similar position today when it comes to waiting for Christ. Will we be like Simeon and Anna in Luke 2:21-38? Waiting in faith for the promises of God to be fulfilled? Do we even know what the promises are? Are we walking in the Spirit and clinging to Scripture? I pray you will join us this weekend for worship and next week for one of our Christmas Eve services. Corporately and prayerfully, we will turn our attention to God’s Word. We will ask the Spirit of God to open our eyes, hearts and ears to His truth that we might grow in our anticipation for Christ. That, like Simeon and Anna, we would wait upon the Lord, watch for the Lord, and walk in the Spirit as we anticipate the blessed appearing of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. The joy of seeing Him will be inexpressible!

In 1987, a little girl named Jessica McClure fell down an abandoned well shaft. The shaft was eight inches in diameter and twenty two feet deep. She was lost to her parents with no way to get her out. Her rescue became the focus of the little town of Midland, TX. For 15 hours, men dug and drilled. The limestone around the shaft made her rescue incredibly difficult and almost impossible. At the end of that fifteen hours, however, the world watched as a man who was able to get down into that shaft brought her to the top. The site was filled with folks who had been hoping and praying. The parents were crying, the rescuers were crying, and the newscasters were crying because this little girl, whom everyone thought was dead, was now alive. But in order to live, someone else had to save her.

Little Jessica’s condition is very similar to our spiritual condition prior to Christ. In our sin, we had fallen into an abyss of death from which we could not escape. We were hopeless and helpless. If we had any hope of escape and life, someone from above had to come down to us. That is exactly what Jesus did. He saw you and me in the hole of sin and death. He saw our efforts to free ourselves and the futility of our attempts. He entered that hole of sin and death and offered salvation from above. He not only offered salvation but assurance. The Jesus who came to save also assures us of our salvation.

Few texts of God’s Word describe this salvation more clearly than Romans 5:6-11. I pray that you will plan to join us this weekend as we worship the One who came and rescued us from our hopeless and helpless situation of sin and death.

Over the years, there have been some incredibly effective ad campaigns used to market products. One such campaign was run by the credit card company, American Express, from 1987-1996. Their slogan was “membership has its privileges.” It was widely recognized by people as a way to live an elite lifestyle, and it was very effective in helping to contribute to the debt of those who enjoyed living above their means.

This weekend, we will discover that there is a membership available to us in Christ that has amazing privileges when it comes to being justified by faith. It is a membership that cannot be purchased with money. Your net worth has no effect on your acceptance. In fact, bankruptcy is a primary requirement. This membership is granted freely as a gift to those who place all their faith in Christ for salvation. Christ adds us to the family of faith, and our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. But what about the privileges? Those who are members of God’s family by faith are guaranteed peace, joy, grace and hope. I pray you will join us this weekend as we discover the amazing privileges that are granted to those who are justified by faith in Christ.

Don’t forget Kansas City Christmas this weekend. One of the KC Christmas services will take the place of our Saturday evening service. Please visit our website (or scroll below) to see the details for this incredible time of worship and celebration of the coming of Christ. The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men! It is going to be a great weekend of worship. I look forward to seeing you!

— Pastor Chad

After Faith and I got married, we lived in student housing on the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The small apartment was affordable, and Faith did a great job of making it home. The apartment had one downside. Just outside our apartment on the other side of a small fence was a set of train tracks with a crossing about a hundred yards away. Do you know how many times a train blows the horn? A lot! I hated that horn. It never failed to blow just as I was getting in my truck early in the morning. But that horn serves an important role. It is a warning to unaware drivers who are going about their everyday lives that death is coming down the tracks. If that train suddenly hits your vehicle, you will be dead before you know it. The word of God, in many ways, serves a similar role. It reminds us that death is coming down the tracks of life, and at any moment, you could be called to stand before God. When that day comes, what will your argument be? In Romans 4, Paul gives us the only answer that will stand before a holy God. I pray you will make plans to join us for worship this weekend as we look to the King of kings and the Lord of lords: our only hope and Savior, Jesus Christ. — Pastor Chad

Few disasters are more well-known than the sinking of the Titanic. The Titanic was an amazing marvel of human ingenuity and achievement created to make transatlantic ocean crossings between Southampton, England and New York City. But it had a major flaw. The quality of the steel and rivets was too weak and brittle to withstand contact with any of the icebergs floating in the Atlantic Ocean. A lot of people put their faith in what they thought was able to carry them safely to the other shore. What they thought was substantial was actually paper thin and couldn’t hold up against an Atlantic iceberg.

When it comes to salvation, people place their faith in a lot of things. Some place their trust in their own morality, their own good works. Others place their faith in physical acts of religion. They believe their church attendance, membership, baptism or communion will carry them safely to the other shore. Biblically speaking, however, none of those will stand up against the iceberg of God. We will all meet God, and when we stand before Him, all our arguments of works and religion will be revealed as paper thin. They won’t hold up. Our only hope is faith in Jesus.

Paul reminds of us this truth as we study Romans this weekend. I pray you’ll make plans to join us. You can’t love Christ and not love His body, the Church. Gather with us as we worship the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God to whom belongs the glory forever and ever. Amen.

– Pastor Chad –

Much emphasis today has been placed on discovering your cultural heritage. Today, using your DNA with precise geographic detail and historical insights, you can connect yourself with the people and places in your genealogical past. In Romans 4, Paul traces our spiritual lineage. You might say that Romans 4 is Paul’s version of ancestry.com. Paul will demonstrate how Jews and Gentiles who place their faith in Christ come from a long line of believers including Abraham and David. Salvation by faith is not a novelty. It is not departing from Old Testament Scriptures; it is following in the path of the great Old Testament saints. I pray you will join us this weekend. Corporate worship is so critical to our walk with Christ. We all need Christ, and we all need each other. Make plans now to attend one of our many services. We will also have some surprise guests and make a special presentation as part of our missions moment. This is a Sunday you will not want to miss! — Pastor Chad

Growing up, I went to a barbershop not far from the school where my dad worked. Once a month, my dad would give me $6 for my haircut. In the barber shop was a sign that read, “In God we trust, all others pay cash.” You couldn’t pay with a check. You couldn’t pay with a credit card. Cash was the only acceptable payment that the barber would accept. As we continue the study of Romans this week and look in depth at what has often been described as the greatest paragraph in our Bible, we are reminded again that Jesus Christ is the only payment God will accept. There is only one way to satisfy the wrath of God. There is only one way to pay for your sins. There is only one entrance to heaven and His name is Jesus. I pray you will plan to join us this weekend as we continue to walk through this beautiful passage in God’s Word. — Pastor Chad

Our passage this weekend includes three words that are essential to understanding the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are theological terms that take us into three different realms of understanding and illustrate all that Christ accomplished for us in His life, death and resurrection, and they must be considered simultaneously. All three united together demonstrate, as we see in v.26, how God can be “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” God has looked upon us in our great need and hopelessness, in all the dimensions of our sin, and provided, in Christ, a Savior who is all-sufficient for our need. I pray you will join us this weekend as we focus on our great Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now more than ever we need corporate worship. We need a place to gather with God’s people around the truth of His Holy Word and sing, pray and worship. To declare as the Psalmist, “I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; from where shall my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” — Pastor Chad