Immanuel

 

Text: Luke 2:41-52

Focus: Advent5

Function: to help people see the divinity of Jesus.

⁴¹Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. ⁴²And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. ⁴³When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. ⁴⁴Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. ⁴⁵When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. ⁴⁶After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. ⁴⁷And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. ⁴⁸When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” ⁴⁹He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” ⁵⁰But they did not understand what he said to them. ⁵¹Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.

⁵²And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.

Throughout the accounts of Jesus’ infancy and childhood, we read the phrase, “And Mary treasured these things in her heart.”

This is the last accounting we have of Jesus before His ministry started when He was baptized by John and the Holy Spirit fell on Him.

And the story, along with the virgin birth of Jesus, the appearance of the angels, the shepherds coming to the nativity, the eventual coming of the wise men, and all the other miracles associated with Jesus’ birth were treasures in the heart of Mary.

And although the ministry of Jesus didn’t officially begin until He was baptized in the Holy Spirit, He exhibits these signs of divinity, even in His childhood.

We worship Jesus as a babe born in these humble conditions with miracle after miracle surrounding His birth. And since we worship Him, we believe that He is God in the flesh, the Immanuel sent to save us.

All of this was promised by God in prophecy by Isaiah over 400 years before. Isaiah said: ¹⁴Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14

The Jewish people understood the translation for young woman meant that she was still a virgin, hence the adjective “young” added to her description.

And God said that this would be the sign that God was coming to dwell in human form. The virgin birth.

What does it mean for us that He is God in our presence?

Well, for one, it means, as the second verse of O Holy Night says, “To our weaknesses, He is no stranger.”

The Bible tells us that Jesus was tested in every way that we are and He was without sin. He passed all the tests that God allowed Him to go through.

I don’t know about you, but I am glad to be reminded often that Jesus understands in an human way the pain and heartaches that our trials and tribulations bring us.

Like I said, my favorite verse from the Bible is “Jesus wept.” To our weaknesses, Jesus is no stranger. Praise God.

Immanuel, God with us. What a joy to celebrate that this Christmas season. It also means that He came to show us what is important to God.

John describes Jesus as the Word of God in the flesh. So, Immanuel is “The Word of God.” John speaks mystically with mysterious phrases. I believe that he means that Jesus is the picture of God that humanity can understand. In other words, God wanted us to really know and understand what was important to God about the way we lived and interacted with other people. So, God came down here and showed us exactly what was of importance.

And God promised to become Immanuel, so, Jesus becoming the Word of God for to us is God fulfilling God’s own word to redeem us.

Jesus spoke of it when they were questioning Jesus’ origins and Jesus tells them that He preceded Abraham. Jesus identifies Himself at this point as the Eternal God and they ripped their clothes because they accused Him of blasphemy.

Jesus claims to be God. Not to show off. But to inform them that God was indeed fulfilling God’s own promise to them to become one of them.

And then we read of the terrible purpose of Jesus Christ. Terrible for Him, but glorious for us.

There was another prophecy in Isaiah, the 53^rd chapter this time, that tells us of the Messiah being a suffering servant who takes on our sins. And then John goes on to tell us that this sacrifice covered the sins of the whole world.

So, for three years of official ministry, and before that as the child of Mary and the Holy Spirit Jesus showed us how to live.

We need to take account of the lifestyle and deathstyle of the Immanuel, if we are to truly appreciate His life, death and resurrection for us.

The lifestyle of Jesus was contrary to the culture and showed a generosity of love and faith in God that no one has ever matched. It shows us the divinity of Jesus Christ as He kept on His focus even though it cost Him the terrible pain and agony of the cross. But He willingly did it for us. We understand, then, the power of sacrifice and live lives that also show the love of Jesus for others.

So for three years the Immanuel showed us how to live. And then, as we have noted, for three days, Jesus became the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

I know it is Christmas, a time of joy and celebration of Love, But that love would not have happened if God had not given up God’s place in heaven, lowered God’s own self to the place of a servant and then became the sacrifice for our sins. Praise God!

So today we celebrate the coming of Jesus, Immanuel. God with us. Praise God!

A Reason For Joy

 

Text: Zephaniah 3:14-20

Focus: Joy, advent 3

Function:

¹⁴Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
    shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
    O daughter Jerusalem!
¹⁵The Lord has taken away the judgments against you,
    he has turned away your enemies.
The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
    you shall fear disaster no more.
¹⁶On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Do not fear, O Zion;
    do not let your hands grow weak.
¹⁷The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
    a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
    he will renew you in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing
¹⁸    as on a day of festival.
I will remove disaster from you,
    so that you will not bear reproach for it.
¹⁹I will deal with all your oppressors
    at that time.
And I will save the lame
    and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
    and renown in all the earth.
²⁰At that time I will bring you home,
    at the time when I gather you;
for I will make you renowned and praised
    among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes
    before your eyes, says the Lord.

I love this scripture! The minor prophets just seem to get it and the Spirit of Jesus Christ inside of them helps them see the importance of these simple things in our lives.

Simple things like the advent themes, Hope, love, Joy and Peace. Today we focus on joy and the scripture that we have before us speaks of rejoicing in both our hope and the realization of our hope when the promises come to pass.

Sing! Shout! Rejoice! Exult! All of these are given to us as expressions of our reaction to the emotions we feel when we experience the blessings of God in our lives.

And he gives to us a spiritual principle, when God brings blessings into our lives, it is a sign that God is not angry with us and the God loves us. We remember, according to scripture that God is Love. And, as we see in verse 15 when He says that the Lord takes away the judgments against you. It reiterates this: God loves us and forgives us of our sins, brokenness, failures.

I love verse 17. The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives (you) the victory. HE WILL REJOICE OVER YOU WITH GLADNESS and renew you in his love.

This is a different sort of prophecy about the coming of Jesus. Jesus is described as the warrior in our midst who fights our enemies. Our enemies, the verse before tell us, is our sins, which His love has removed from us.

So, as a result of this cleansing from Him we see His reaction to us.

I put the next line, “He will rejoice…” in all caps in my notes to remind me to emphasize the meaning. He will dance upon our problems with His love and renew us with His love.

We are renewed by the love of God.

There have been some times in my life where I have had a very strong sense of the love of God. I can describe it almost as if I felt the hand of God resting in the middle of my back to support me and give me courage. I feel God’s presence. And, I don’t like to talk about it much because I don’t want to brag, or to say that my experience is the only normal experience and if you don’t sense it, there is nothing wrong with you or your faith.

But those are the times when I know the prophecies about the coming of the Spirit of God into the life of the believer are true. And here is the thing, those experiences have always come at the behest of either two events in my life. One, is a deep recognition of the sacrifice of Christ for me on the cross. And the other is when I am confronted with the need to express love through forgiveness of a person who has harmed me.

Forgiveness is a sacrifice of love. Forgiveness is an act of faith because we say to God that we do not want God to judge the person on our behalf since God has forgiven us.

It is a sacrifice because we lay down our rights in favor of the right that God has to forgive that person. We place our trust in the justice of God.

And when I get upset about what seems to be an injustice to me, I go back to the cross of Christ and remember that Jesus forgave the men who tortured Him to death. And Jesus was innocent. He died to show us how to live a sacrificial life for the good of humanity.

Living a sacrificial life for the good of humanity is a great way to express our witness for Jesus Christ in a hostile world.

My friend from High School, asked me for advice on how to talk to his niece who has a genuine religious objection to vaccines. His brother is immune compromised and shouldn’t take the risk of exposure to her. And because he loves her, he wants to see her. Yet she believes that her faith will keep them safe. My friend believes that she is being selfish and imposing her religious beliefs on his brother. Her refusal doesn’t sit well with my friend as a Christian testimony.

I wished I had an answer for my friend. I wanted to tell him to tell her that Christians are called to seek for the good for others and live this sacrificial life that I am preaching about right now. But, he already knows that about me, and I didn’t want to sound pedantic.

I will email him that I am frustrated that people misrepresent the faith in such extreme ways. Extreme positions like this damage the witness that we have. I believe, that if people want an extreme position, let it be one of love for our neighbors.

If we want to be like Jesus, then we too will live a sacrificial life for the good of others.

Living a sacrificial life will be a witness to those around us.

That leads us back to the text. In the rest of the passage. He describes two reasons for calamity. 1). Oppressors who treat us unfairly and 2). natural disasters. And He promises to remove the shame of tragedies in our lives.

I see a lot of people begging in the streets while I am driving for Uber in Dayton. When one looks at them, one is conditioned to see dirt and disgust. One is conditioned to wonder how a person can fall so low in a land of so much plenty? One can easily judge the poor as responsible for their own plight.

But the prophet says that God sees two legitimate reasons for poverty, disaster and oppression. And human nature is to shame the poor. And Yet, Jesus said, blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of God. How can we judge the poor when after all, when we look into their face, we see the face of God? Now, I am not going to preach at you about this, I am going to preach at me. It is too easy for me to ignore the gaze of the beggar on the street corner because I am afraid that showing them kindness will give them some hope that I might be generous with them. And so, I ignore them telling myself that giving to them would cost me too much time and money because there are so many of them. I pray that God will deliver me from the way that society has conditioned me to look down on the poor. God loves them.

So, let me get back to the promise of God here listed in this passage. The promise of God is that even though I or others may shame them for their condition, even though they may be filled with their own regrets, sorrow and shame, so much that they feel trapped, God has removed their shame and promises to set them free. The gospel is good news to the poor.

God is near to the poor, especially those who are victims of disaster or abuse. Most who are strung out on drugs began abusing drugs as a way to cope with the abuses and disasters they have suffered. They got there because they are victims. A car accident, prescription pain killers that lead to an addiction that destroyed a life. It happens to regular people. So who conditioned us to judge them so harshly? Satan himself?

The passage promises us that God has removed from us all the judgments against us.

And another promise in the passage is to that God has set us free from our shame.

And that, I believe, is a reason for joy.

The Power of Peace

Text: Luke 1:39-55

Focus: peace

Function: to help people find places of peace in their lives.

^39-45Mary didn’t waste a minute. She got up and traveled to a town in Judah in the hill country, straight to Zachariah’s house, and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby in her womb leaped. She was filled with the Holy Spirit, and sang out exuberantly,

You’re so blessed among women,
    and the babe in your womb, also blessed!
And why am I so blessed that
    the mother of my Lord visits me?
The moment the sound of your
    greeting entered my ears,
The babe in my womb
    skipped like a lamb for sheer joy.
Blessed woman, who believed what God said,
    believed every word would come true!

^46-55And Mary said,

I’m bursting with God-news;
    I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.
God took one good look at me, and look what happened—
    I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
    the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
His mercy flows in wave after wave
    on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
    scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
    pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
    the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
    he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised,
    beginning with Abraham and right up to now.

Good morning, and welcome to advent 4, our last Sunday of worship before we celebrate on Christmas Eve, 10:00 PM.

And today we focus on the theme of peace. Peace is an abstract concept that incorporates several different ranges. We can speak of the state of peace that we have with God through the atonement of Jesus Christ. We can speak of the state of peace that we have with others now that we have joined the family of God, everyone is our brother and sister and we love them as much as we love ourselves because Jesus said that if we loved Him, we would love others. We can speak of the peace that we feel within our own hearts because we know that we are forgiven and loved by God and are now considered sons and daughters of God. There is a another form of peace that we can speak about, and that is the peace that comes when the poor get the justice that is promised them through the coming of the Savior. Mary speaks of this kind of peace in her song of joy.

So, peace can have many different meanings and I think from our text today that along with the peace that comes when the poor are elevated to a just place is the idea that God has given to us a sense of peace within our hearts. At least it get it from the joy the two women experience at the moment. Someone said, and I don’t know who, Peace is joy resting and joy is peace dancing. Mary danced for joy, and John the baptist, inside the womb of Elizabeth, also leaped for joy.

Elizabeth, in her greeting declares that Mary is blessed because she believed what was told her.

Her niece, Mary, this woman who is blessed and called by God, believed when the angel appeared to her. Mary was different than Elizabeth’s husband who also had an angel appear to him and doubted. Her husband, Zachariah, was a priest to God and should have been the one with the stronger faith, But because of his doubt, he became mute until their child of promise was born.

Elizabeth speaks of how trust in God leads us toward an inner peace.

Mary, then picks up the theme of justice. Let me re-read from our text:

His mercy flows in wave after wave
    on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
    scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
    pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
    the callous rich were left out in the cold.

I find it significant that Elizabeth speaks of Mary’s individual and personal choice to believe and Mary speaks of how when it happens to individuals, it transforms into a corporate redemption of society. The Church is intended to transform the world into a loving place. It is our mission.

The Church embraced this concept during its first three centuries and the gospel was preached primarily among the poor and the outcast.

And because of their love for each other, and the way they cared for each other, and the way Jesus condemned anyone who was greedy, or callous toward the poor while hoarding wealth brought them to a point where they lived in community, shared and made sure that everyone had enough. You can read about it throughout the letters written in the New Testament. And, historically, the Church never grew faster than it did then.

It grew because it embraced the concept of love and justice for everyone.

And in this passage, that is the kind of peace that Mary speaks of.

I mention how God has called the church to transform society, let me tell you, we cannot do it alone.

You hear me speak often of the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I believe that the Spirit’s presence in our lives brings us to a sense of peace with God.

And, it comes because, as Elizabeth said, because of faith, or trust, in God. We believe that we can gain direct access to God through Jesus Christ, who died, and then rose again and abides at the right hand of the power of God. Jesus saved us and lives again to redeem humanity.

It is the power of the Spirit that leads us to love God and to love others.

The Spirit entered my life when I confessed that I trust in Jesus Christ to save me. But I am reminded that God’s purpose was not to just save me from any punishment for the sins I committed, but to empower me to be the kind of person who loves his brother and sister as much as he loves himself.

God’s love flows through us through the power of the Holy Spirit. In our Kairos ministry. I like to give the talk about perseverance in the faith. And it goes like this. There are three legs to our Christian life, Action, study and spirituality.

I find peace in my life when I devote myself to Christian action. Actually sacrificing my time and effort as a way to show love to others. Loving others can be messy business, but as we do it, the Spirit of God flows through us and we feel His peace at work inside of us.

Study. The first thing I do in the morning, before I turn on the local news or anything is take time to study God’s word. I read the bible through with a reading plan that takes me through the Bible every year by giving me a history book, a NT book and a book from the Psalms or prophets. Sometimes it gets hard and I have to slug through a book, but when I am paying attention, oftentimes, it is like reading it for the first time as the Spirit of God reveals His word to me. It is a way of communicating with God and it is important for you. Don’t just rely on my to feed you God’s word. Take time to study it for yourselves and let the Spirit illumine you.

And Prayer. Take time to pray. I assume that prayer time is not a problem for you all. It seems to me that faith in this place is pretty high. Thank God. Prayer connects us to God and places us in a spot where God’s peace can fill our hearts and comfort us.

So, let the power of peace fill your hearts this season and beyond.

Love Came Down at Christmas

 

Text: Luke 3:2-6

Focus: Love, advent 2

Function: To help them see how love covers a multitude of sins

²during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. ³He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, ⁴as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
    make his paths straight.
⁵Every valley shall be filled,
    and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
    and the rough ways made smooth;
⁶and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

Well, welcome to the second week of Advent. We are truly blessed to be such a part of such a loving community. I don’t know about you, but I experience God in community. Somehow, when we sit at the table in worship, or in the sanctuary in worship, or in the basement worshiping by our fellowship, when we are together, as Jesus said, He is in our midst.

Friday night was a beautiful worship experience for me. The fellowship of the gifts, first starting with the poem that brother Earl read, to the fantastic meal and the company there to the beauty of the setting and then to be able to take those beautiful gifts home with us was truly an act of worship.

I could tell that people put a lot of time and sacrifice into our worship service Friday night.

I love serving you as your pastor, and the main reason is because of the seriousness with which you take the time that we spend together. I notice that you do not come to church merely as a matter of habit, which is biblical. The author of Hebrews speaks of developing a habit of gathering together. What I notice though, goes beyond that. When we meet together, we are connecting with the divine in a way that nurtures and encourages our souls. We are feeding our spiritual bodies and preparing ourselves to be servants in the Kingdom of heaven. It makes my job easier because you are eager to participate in what God has for you when we gather.

Friday night’s Christmas dinner really drove that home for me. Thanks again for letting Kathy and I worship with you.

And that drives us toward today’s theme. Love. Our scripture today speaks of what God is doing to get us ready for the coming of the Savior into our lives.

At Christmas, we worship the coming of Jesus, but at the same time, we are continually inviting Jesus into our hearts as we strive to learn the lessons of advent as they renew our hope in the promises of God.

John preaches a baptism of repentance during the first advent as they were all waiting for the coming of the Messiah.

Preparation for the coming of Jesus includes repentance on our parts as well. We recognize that because of Christ Jesus’ presence in our lives through faith in the sacrifice of Christ for us, we also are different and new people. We have turned a new leaf and are living new lives of love for our neighbor. Jesus said that the love we have for others will be the defining character of our lives and the proof of our faith. John 13:35: By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

As we are preparing for the coming of Jesus, again, as we are preparing our heats to be open to what God has for us this Christmas season, let us ask ourselves the question, “Is love the defining characteristic of our lives?”

Let me read 1 Peter 4:7-10 ⁷The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. ⁸Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. ⁹Be hospitable to one another without complaining. ¹⁰Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.

Let me say that serving one another is one of the ways that the power of the Holy Spirit flows through us. Jesus said that life giving water (spiritual water) will flow out of us toward those around us.

Again, I saw the joy of the Lord fill the hearts of those who were serving us Friday night. They were using their gifts just as Christ intended and it brought joy and peace to me as it started out the Christmas season and helped to put me in the same frame of mind as those whose joy it was to serve.

And love will act out in genuine service toward others.

Let me go back to verse 8 from the 1 Peter text. “Above all maintain constant love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins.”

People some times ask me what else I do beside Uber driving and I get all kinds of reactions from people when I tell them I am a preacher.

Sometimes they ask, what do you preach? And I tell them that if they come to my church on any given Sunday, they are probably going to hear me tell them to love each other because that is really all that matters for us to be doing.

That is why Peter says, “Above all” maintain love for others.

For if we do, love covers a multitude of sins. There are a lot of ideas behind this. Which sins is the apostle talking about? Is he speaking of the sins of the person who is loving? Or, is he talking about how we can actually partner with God and facilitate the forgiveness of sins in another person as well as ourselves?

If he is speaking of our own acts of love balancing out our sins and somehow God is obligated to save us because we tipped the scale, then I think we do not understand the sacrifice of Christ.

Apparently, we cannot save ourselves. We need Jesus. Sin, I believe, in this scripture, is doing acts of evil. Acts where others are harmed by our actions either through greed, direct action or even our silence. We are called to be agents of God’s love to a world that certainly needs more love for others.

So, when he says we cover a multitude of sins, first we understand that Jesus’ love for us covers the entire multitude of error, failure and sins that we have committed simply by the act of faith in Christ. I believe that His Spirit comes in us when we confess that we have fallen short of God’s glory and turn around, repented from allowing evil to happen by standing against it through different actions, speech and our relationship to money and power.

We now belong to the family of God and God is the one who provides and cares for us. We can love like Jesus did, even when it cost us dearly, because we have the power of the Spirit inside of us to help us love others.

So, first we are loved and saved by God’s grace through Jesus Christ. Second, we love others as well because we know that love covers a multitude of sins and if we love, we too, will be loved and forgiven.

That is why I say, Love came down at Christmas. Jesus first appeared weak and vulnerable, and He appeared to have died the same way. But in both cases, His supernatural conception and then natural birth, coupled with His prayer at His death: “Father, forgive them…” demonstrates to us that living by faith gives us the power to love unconditionally because we trust in the justice of God.

God’s love came at Christmas, swaddled and laid in a feeding trough, God’s love resisted the hate that tried to kill Him several times until the time was right and His love could redeem us from our own brokenness.

So, this Christmas season, let us also love with Jesus’ love for others.