Amen. Well, Merry Christmas, Church of 1122, and welcome to our very first Christmas Eve service.

And nothing feels more like Christmas Eve than 82 degrees. But it didn't stop Son of you from wearing

scarves and boots. And so Merry Christmas. Hey, you see, really, the thing about Christmas,

we've been in this series all throughout the Advent season called Unexpected Hope, and we've had these face-to-face

encounters with Jesus.

And what you encounter when you come face-to-face with Jesus is this unexpected hope.

And Christmas is the thing that makes possible us to have a face-to-face encounter with the

Almighty God.

You see, Christmas is the greatest announcement in all of human history and really all of

eternity.

You see, the announcement begins all the way back in the book of Genesis when it starts

this way, and God says, let us make mankind in our image.

And if you're new to Bible study, you're thinking, well, who is God talking to?

Is there somebody up there with him?

Well, actually, we believe in a triune God, one God, and three persons, God the Father, God, the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

And God is love, and love has to have a subject and an object.

And the subject and object of God's love is God's love for God's self, it overflows into what we know as creation.

And God creates mankind.

And he creates Adam.

And it says, it's not good for man to be alone, probably because he'd burned out the garden all by himself.

And so he gives him a wife.

And so they are this representation of who God is, this image of the immortal and visible God.

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