All I Want For Christmas

by Rich Bregitzer
(St. Louis, MO)

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

Pray – Dear God in Heaven I pray this message be not dull and if it be your will O God may its meaning bless us all.

3 TYPES OF AGENDAS

1. My (Personal/Individual) Agenda

Define good agenda: plan for learning and living for the purpose of loving.

1a. Share my Christmas list from when I was kid: Weeble Wobbles, Erector Set, Lincoln Logs, Stretch Armstrong, Evel Knevel, B.B. Gun, a Beta-Max VCR, Atari 2600 –older still- stereo, records, Commodore 64 computer, a corvette settle for a motorcycle.

1b. Does your personal agenda serve self or others? Conflicting agendas.
Romans 6:20, 21, “As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn’t have to bother with right thinking or right living or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? (Being a slave to yourself) What did you get out of it? Nothing you’re proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.

A good agenda is a self-less plan that is founded on the future.
People caught up in living for the moment are usually to short sighted to consider the future.

2. Collective Agenda

Use our vision statement as an example. Is the sanctuary full? What action and what change needs to occur to make this happen?
Paul gives the church at Corinth a behavioral example in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23. “Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant (laying aside his personal agenda) to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, non-religious, meticulous moralists, loose living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized, whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life.

I kept my bearings in Christ, but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it.”

Mention a possible town hall forum to discuss how to promote our collective agenda.

3. God’s Agenda

Revealed in scripture, through prayer and discerned reason
John 3:16, 17, “This is how much God loved the world: He gave His Son, His one and only Son. And this is why: So that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.”

IMPORTANT EQUATION: My time + My talent + My treasure = My way…You’d have no time if God wasn’t giving it to you, you’d have no talent if God had not blessed you with gifts and the treasure he’s lent you is rightfully His anyway.

CLOSE WITH ADULT XMAS LIST: to have a peacemaker mentality, peace on earth, a discerned spirit, a willingness to compromise, boldness to proclaim the gospel and the wisdom to know how to do so, good friends, opportunities to exalt and glorify Christ, a servants heart and to be merciful and compassionate.

AMEN.