Advent - Love

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Thank you, Carrington's. Well, if you have not met the newest member of our church family, this is Oakley Simmons and He is adorable isn't you can clap for him if you want to he's just that cute Please clap for cute I Don't know if you know this but about a newborn baby but or it I mean how old is he exactly six weeks? Okay close enough There is a there is a a strange and wonderful power that newborn babies have over adults where If all of you are resisting right now You're resisting the urge to make eye contact with the baby and to make faces so that the baby smiles You're resisting it because this is what adults do adults Lose all of their composure look at look Amy just she wants to just stare at him Just he can't even see you. He's six weeks old, but that's fine

Just just adorable and there's something about a newborn baby, right? There's just something about a baby when you see it and You're just you just want to squeeze them, you know, you just want to hold them You just want to make them smile. You just want to make them laugh And you will look stupid doing it. Okay, you're just making the the weirdest faces the weirdest sounds and adult This is universal adults you you will do this

When we think about Christmas a lot of times we are really busy Thinking about a newborn baby, right and that's good Jesus came as a newborn baby here. I'm gonna give Oakley back because I think my time is about to run short Thank You Patrick and Eliza Okay, that's you're on the clock with the baby like that. It's okay He Spitted right before because he knew he was gonna have some stage time. So he's like I gotta I gotta get this out. Okay

Yeah, when we are thinking about Christmas we think about a newborn baby in fact We get kind of so enamored with this that even when we even when we're singing away in a manger We think that we consider Jesus we think about him a sleep where a sleep asleep in the hay, right? I see and does he make any noise? No, no crying he makes right like it's a listen This is I don't know. I know that Jesus is is the God man And so I'm assuming he was a different kind of baby than a normal baby, but I can almost guarantee that baby cried Okay, baby Jesus cried. He needed his diaper changed He you know, he was a baby and that Mary and Joseph made Their faces at him I'm sure that that the shepherds even maybe made some faces at him to try to get him to smile And then he was cute And really this is this is kind of the paradox of Christmas, right? The paradox of Christmas is that we we sing about a a sleeping baby

But we also at the exact same time Celebrate why that baby came? Okay, you can see this in the very famous Christmas song Mary did you know? Okay, Mary did you know you guys if you've not heard it? Oh, it's a it's a trip Okay, so it's a song written to Mary right proverbially It's to Mary and it says Mary Did you know that your little baby is gonna do all these really crazy things later? So it's things like Mary. Did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man? Okay? Mary did you know that your baby boy will will calm the storm with his hand? Okay And it's it's it's kind of it's a good, you know It's kind of mind-blowing the very first time you hear it and then it gets old. That's fine. It's a it's a great song You know your mind can only be blown so many times by that song But what you if you go back and look at the lyrics what it doesn't speak about directly is

The cross now, it's not a knock on Mary Did you know but it is to point out something that it is difficult for us to imagine a? Little baby growing up to suffer torture Right, we look a little Oakley and we just think that kids beautiful that there's no way that kids gonna have a hard life There's no way that that kids going to suffer anything. There's no way that but it's but it's true

It's uncomfortable to think about the the horrible death that Jesus would undergo when we're thinking about Jesus as a baby It's it's it's a very strange Thing but this is this is Christmas. This is actually what we celebrate we we celebrate Both this is the paradox we celebrate Jesus in the manger There and we not that manger what we celebrate Jesus in the manger and we also celebrate Jesus on the cross that it's both It's not we don't divide it. We don't say no We don't talk about the cross at Christmas or no, we don't talk about him being born at on Easter or something. I don't know No We celebrate both in the major and on the cross and so as we read the Christmas story this morning Of how Jesus came to earth. Let's let's also remember What awaited him as he came to earth? Let's see the baby. Let's see the manger, but let's also see the cross a really helpful text on this

We're gonna kind of read two texts parallel to one another So we're gonna read Luke 2 because it's Christmas Eve, so we better read Luke 2 Okay, but we're also gonna read Isaiah 53 with Luke 2. Okay, we're gonna kind of read both If you don't want to keep going back and forth your Bible, that's fine You can like pick one and the rest is gonna be on the screen as we go

Isaiah 53 particularly is a prophecy About what awaited Jesus on earth. So this is written several hundred years before Jesus came Jesus came as the Messiah the Isaiah 53 is talking about the Messiah what the Messiah's life is going to be like Whenever he's on earth. And so this is what we what we read in Isaiah 53 verses 2 and 3 it says for he grew up before him like a young plant just talking about Jesus and Like a root out of a out of dry ground He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him He was despised and rejected by men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and As one from whom men hide their faces He was despised and we assumed him not

This is Prophecy because it's talking about Jesus's ministry the kind of ministry that he's going to have he's going to have a ministry that is Full of grief and sorrow and not just at the cross, but before that he's going to be unesteemed He's going to be reviled people are gonna have their faces from him. But doesn't it also describe Jesus's birth? Right. It also describes his birth. Let's listen. We're gonna switch over Luke 2 verses 1 through 3 it says in in those days a Decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered And this was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria And all went to be registered each to his own town I want to pause there for just a second and say as as Luke who's writing this gospel as he's as he's writing these verses What really what he's going to kind of put an emphasis on and it's hard because we read these verses every year

And it's the Christmas story and why are we looking for something different? But it's here Luke as he describes Jesus's birth really accents on the lowliness of Jesus's birth Even in has as he's describing it here He's he's talking about Jesus and he's not born into power or wealth or status That he's actually born subject to outside forces His place of birth is being determined by some senses that some bureaucrat made up Really, you know like over there. Okay, this isn't this isn't this doesn't smell like God ordained anything This just seems like the the government wheels grinding. Okay, that's all this is It's a it's a census that somebody decided to to declare and that meant people had to go back to their hometown so the this this is what Jesus is born into he sees the son of the king and

Normally sons of the king are born wherever the king wants him to be born Census or not, but that doesn't seem like the case here Let's read verses four and five of Luke 2 Says and Joseph also went up to went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea the city of David Which was called Bethlehem? Because he was of the house and lineage of David to be registered with Mary his betrothed who was with child There's a couple things here that highlights kind of Jesus's lowliness here. The first is that Jesus is not born in the seat of power He's not born in Jerusalem, which is that that's the city right if you're gonna if you're gonna look at Israel's history the city of Jerusalem is kind of like their crowning achievement, right? It's a it's a it's a focal point of political power military power social power But he's not born there He's born in Bethlehem

He's born in Itasca, Texas He ain't close nothing wrong with Itasca, but it ain't Dallas. Okay, I think we understand the difference here He's born he's born outside and In all these references. Here's the other thing. There's all these references to King David right here, right? He's born in the like just excuse me the city of David. He's in David's lineage and but all that does is it highlights how Jesus is still born so far away from that royalty right in other words, it's to say King David had a descendant and Nobody was paying attention Nobody's putting on a parade. Nobody's notifying the press. Nobody cares

It even though he's he's being born in the in the city of David even though it's it's He's being or outside and and even though he's in the in the in the lineage and house of David Nobody cares. Nobody's tracing his heritage Look at the last two. So verses six and seven Which I believe punctuates Jesus's humble beginnings, okay, so verse six and seven it says and while they were there the time came for her to give birth and she gave birth to her firstborn son and Wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn Now there's a lot that's assumed there. Okay There was no place for them in the inn. This is the first we hear about the inn. Okay But what we all know is that is that they could not even get a decent room For Jesus to be born in and it punctuates his humble beginnings Jesus was born in a storage shed in Itasca, Texas

Okay Jesus was born probably in an abandoned storage shed and I did a rusty one that they couldn't keep all the rain out and in its It's so tough to remember this it's because it's such a familiar story We read it every Christmas but that he was born in I mean look that's a beautiful little like manger That's a that's a very kind of you know, Hollywood version of what Jesus was born in He was born in a feed trough in a storage shed in Itasca, Texas

That's humble. That's humble beginnings That's like Almost nobody wanted you born right? That's what that tells it should it should tell us it should help us understand that Jesus was born Into a humble beginning that that he was he was born into something that Nobody nobody's putting on their wish list. Like I really want our new son to be born, you know in these places and And the lowliness the insignificance of Jesus's birth

Foreshadows the kind of life that he's going to have It's It foreshadows the things that awaited him that that were pointed at in Isaiah 53 And when it says that he had no majesty that we should look at him When it says that that he had no beauty that we should not desire him that he was that he was rejected He was despised. He was a man of sorrow as he was acquainted with grief and we did not esteem him All of this this birth narrative all this this these things they tell us they point us to Isaiah 53 and we can see why if we keep reading Isaiah 53 so flip back to Isaiah 53 and we're gonna reverse is four and five and Remember Isaiah 53 it's a prophecy talking about Jesus's life. Here's what it says Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows yet. We esteemed him stricken smitten by God and afflicted But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and

With his wounds we are healed It is helpful I think on on the Sunday that we speak about love The Advent's, you know, we've been the four weeks of Advent. We've been talking about Hope then peace last week was joy and now we're into love and this isn't this isn't just The feel-good love that we all you know, like I love a hamburger. Okay, we're it's a different obviously It's a different kind of love than that. But what are we talking about? We're talking about sacrificial love. We're talking about undeserved sacrificial love and as we remember this as we remember that This that we didn't deserve this is undeserved sacrificial love that sent Jesus to the manger It was all in view Verses four and five to help us understand like we were the ones who overlooked him We were the ones who didn't give him glory. We were the transgressors not him. It was our sin our

iniquities To save us from our sin if we believe and Jesus in the manger man Just like a little Oakley, right? Jesus in the manger so vulnerable so beautiful Makes you as an adult makes you make the dumbest faces. Okay Just and that's just you responding to beauty. That's all that is when you want to make a face of a kid That's just you enjoying God's creation right there But truly it is it is the gospel in simplest terms and I love Kenneth I love that you brought up John 3 16 It is the gospel in in simple terms and it's very familiar to all of us But but let's just think about it the very first part of that says for God so loved the world Okay, so God so I think I got it up there. Yes, so loved. Okay that phrase so loved it doesn't mean Sometimes it gets translated like God loved the world so much Like that it's a that's an it's a It's like very okay, like he loved the world a whole lot. That's actually not what that that's not what that means. Okay

It means that God loved the world in this way Okay for God loved the world in this way This is the way that God loved the world. How did he do it? How did he love the world? He sent his son to it In a manger why To be a sacrifice for us To to make us holy to save us from our sin Jesus in the manger is Actually the single greatest act of sacrificial love the world will ever know In the manger and it Jesus in the manger leads us to Jesus on the cross

And when he arrives he doesn't he doesn't arrive with fanfare. No status no wealth and it forecast the rest of his life Jesus did not come to be on t-shirts or to write the most famous book ever known. Okay, he didn't do that God sent Jesus to a storage shed in itasca, Texas to help us understand That that Jesus's life and our life and following him it's not a parade. It's a sacrifice It's not about fanfare. It's about giving things away

It's not about us. It's about others. It's about serving the Lord as we serve other people. I Want to end with just looking at Isaiah 56 verse 3 the last the last verse of that Prophecy that says all we like sheep have gone astray We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all We are the stray sheep that need redemption

We are the ones that are lost without hope Never gonna find our way back. I don't know if you know this about sheep sheep are very dumb Like very dumb and this is what the Bible calls us all we like sheep have gone astray When sheep go astray there ain't coming back Sheep just kind of like, you know, you might have heard of like squirreling out Like you just you know, like you're just looking around you're like squirrel and you go that way. Okay, that's a sheep's whole existence Okay, that's a sheep's whole existence

And says all we like sheep Have have gone astray Except we're different than sheep and the metaphor kind of breaks down here when we go astray It's because we are desperate for love When we go astray, it's because we're looking for love in all the wrong places Right that when we go astray, it's not just because we got distracted. It's not just because a squirrel came across our path Or just because we saw some other sheep doing something and we went after them It's because we are looking to fill Something inside of us that is not filled. It's because we are desperate for love and

because of that Because we were desperate for love Jesus Jesus needed to do something that nobody else wanted to do and here's kind of the dark side of Of Christmas right? Here's the dark side of even even Luke 1 and 2 In in Luke 179 Zechariah is Talking about Jesus and he's doing this whole long poem and it's super great. And so he says that Jesus is going to give light He's gonna be light and we love talking about Christmas being light light. We have lights strung up here We love it right light is kind of this picture of Christmas to whom is Jesus going to give light? people in darkness us

Whatever Jesus came he's going to he's gonna bring peace. He's gonna usher in peace in this in this new way to whom people at war with God Just didn't need to bring peace if we weren't at war he didn't need to bring light if we weren't in darkness We looked at Simeon a couple of weeks ago Steve Beckwith Helped us kind of envision Simeon in the temple right Simeon who is he saw Jesus and he's like This is the Christ. This is the Messiah the one who I was waiting for Okay, let me let me hold him right and his wife is saying no Simeon. Don't just calm down We don't know if his wife was there, but it's pretty funny

But what does he say what's he saying Luke 2 he says behold that this child is appointed for what? The fall and rising of many in Israel and for a sign that is opposed As dark a sign is posed why why is it opposed so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed? Jesus came to earth to show us our sin and to say I've got something better That this isn't the end The sacrificial love is is what we celebrate at Christmas and this is our fourth Advent this is this is love

this baby In an animal trough in a storage bed in itasca This sacrificial love is for us and it is given freely to us when we believe And So as we I'm gonna call worship band up as we as we kind of enter into a time of reflection and response I just I want to encourage you Man, we got Christmas Eve stuff happening like my mind is spinning. We got a Christmas Eve service. It's gonna be great You know, I'm thinking about the next morning, you know, whenever we're giving gifts and All that is still kind of there it's all there my encouragement to use just take a moment right here and just put that put that on The backburner. Okay, don't worry. You're not gonna forget to bring the fruitcake to your aunt's house. Okay, don't don't worry about that I know you got the to do's go and I get it Take a second right now and just inhale exhale just breathe and just know

That the sacrificial love of Jesus is what we are celebrating now today tomorrow So let's celebrate it in Prayer the celebrate it as we sing the survey in response Let's pray now Jesus. Thank you for all the ways that you All the ways that you're making us ready You're helping us Anticipate the good things that you are bringing not just Christmas presents, but more This this trust in you that we can trust that you are a good father that you will give good gifts

Help us to feel that at Christmas time help us to see it all the more But it's sinking that you are a good father giving us good gifts Help us to trust you in the midst of it when it doesn't seem like that good Pray that Christmas would be a reminder that Life in you is a good thing. It's your name