Illustration – A year or so ago Amy and I had just gone to bed, and the house was silent, and after a little while there was a noise which sounded like faint scratching on the wood floors. I was nice and cozy in bed and so I didn’t do anything about it, and by the next morning I had forgotten all about it. The next night I was getting ready for bed and as I reached for my night clothes I noticed the curtain by my head move. Of course as you can imagine it startled me, and so I slowly moved closer to get a look at what had caused the curtain to move, and much to my surprise there was a squirrel hanging on the other side of the curtain, a flying squirrel to be exact. I didn’t want the squirrel in the house and I knew it might be in danger from our dog or cat, and so I closed the door to the bedroom, went and found a box. I returned with the box and began the attempt to get the squirrel into the box. I don’t know if you’ve had encounters with flying squirrels before but not only can those little buggers glide they can leap a long ways too. It was quite a comical scene to see me chasing this squirrel all around our bedroom. I have to tell you it is about impossible to get a flying squirrel into a box.
I wondered how I could help this little squirrel without hurting him. How could I convince the little guy not to be afraid, that the reason I was chasing after him was not to hurt him but because I was trying to save him? The truth is, I couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried to convince him I was doing for him what was in his best interest. Probably the only way to convince this squirrel not to be afraid and cooperate with me was if…perhaps I could become a flying squirrel myself. That way I wouldn’t be as intimidating and I could tell him the truth of his situation.
God faced the same condition with us. How can the infinite, all-powerful, Creator of the universe communicate that he loves and cares for us and wants to help us? He could become like one of us.
Whether we realize it or not, we are a lot more like my little squirrel friend than we may know. I’m sure the squirrel thought it was great being in our house, it was warm, cozy, lot’s of places to hide, food available. But what he may not have known was that our cat was in the house and would love to have squirrel for dinner. My dog likewise would have loved to get a shot at him. We too are in need of help. We face dangers that we don’t even realize we need help with, to be saved from.
We may even think life is going pretty good, and yet danger is creeping at the door. And so we may think we don’t need God’s help. In fact we might be wondering what the big deal is in all of this talk about God. We’re doing pretty good on our own thank you very much. What we often don’t realize is that we face two very real dangers: ourselves and Satan. We are in danger from ourselves because we suffer from selfitis. Selfitis is our own selfishness. It’s the part of us that says, I want things my way. Selfitis leads to greed, materialism, envy, lust, anger, and all sorts of other problem. We care more about ourselves than God or others. Now at first this sounds great, because we may get what we want, but eventually this will work against us, in our relationships with other people, and definitely in our relationship with God because as Scripture tells us, our selfitis or sin separates us from God now and eternally because our sin deserves punishment.
The second danger is Satan. He’s gunning for us, trying to trip us up and get us to hurt ourselves, hurt others, get us angry, and feed our selfitis with temptations of all sorts. The Bible describes him as a roaring lion prowling around looking for the next person to devour. He wants to make you fall and be as miserable as he is.
Even if we don’t see these dangers, God does, and he wants to help. But when God tries to help us, we have this tendency to run away. We may be like my little squirrel friend and run in fear because we think God is trying to get us for all the stuff we’ve done, or perhaps we’re having too much fun to care about what God is doing, and so we keep heading toward danger. Unfortunately, even if we are aware of the danger there is very little we can do about it on our own.
Christ is a Demonstration of God’s Love
You may be asking yourself what does all of this have to do with Christmas? I came to hear a Christmas message. I’m glad you asked because I was just about to get to that. God wanted to show how much he cared for us and help us with our dangers, so he had a plan. That plan was to become just like one of us, so he could tell us himself how much he loves and demonstrate that love. This is where Christmas comes in, God sent his Son into the virgin Mary, so that he would experience everything we experienced including birth, growing up, temptations, everything. The way the Scriptures say it is this: “the Word [God’s Son] become flesh and dwelt among us.” In other words, God, or God the Son more precisely, become a human child. The infinite, all-powerful, all-knowing Creator and Ruler of the universe became a fragile human child, almost 2,000 years ago. He was born to a woman named Mary in a town called Bethlehem, in a stable. That was how much he loved and cared for us.
Think of it: the Son of God had always lived in a perfect environment surrounded by perfect love and absolute purity. He had always lived in total freedom with no restrictions or restraints upon Him. He had always been all- powerful. But now He limited Himself to the body of a vulnerable infant boy born in a dirty stable. All to show His love and care. You might say love came down at Christmas. It should blow our mind, that God did this for our sake. One Scripture tries to explain this reality to us, Philippians chapter 2 beginning with verse 5.
Phil. 2:5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!
I have come to better understanding of this concept of complete sacrifice out of love and care for others after getting to know our missionary friends in Haiti, the Cunningham’s. We had met them after they had already become missionaries. But through our visits we discovered that before they had become missionaries they both had great jobs and they owned a successful restaurant (in fact they had over a six figure income), large home, big SUV’s, they were living the American dream, but God called them to be missionaries. At first they gave lots of money to missions, hoping that would satisfy this calling on their life, but God wouldn’t let them go that easy. He had something more fulfilling in store for them. After dragging their feet for a while, they finally handed in their resignations, sold their restaurant, home, and SUV’s and went to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti.
For the first two years they lived in a small brick home with no electricity, no running water, no sewer, no window panes or screens in the windows to protect them from malaria carrying mosquitoes. They had no refrigerator, no stove or heat source except for a charcoal grill which they had to use for every meal. What in the world would motivate a couple (with a teenage daughter mind you) to do something so crazy as to give up that American dream for a difficult life in Haiti? At first it was obedience to God which made them go there, but what kept them there was a love for the people. They wanted to help these people in whatever way they could, educating children, feeding the hungry, providing basic medication, and most important spreading the good news of Jesus Christ.
And yet as impressive as the Cunningham’s loving sacrifice is, it is only a shadow of what the Son of God did by choosing to give up the magnificence of heaven, the power of his divine status to live in the poverty of human flesh. Why would the Son of God, give up everything for a such a humble existence? Because God loves you and wants to help deliver you from danger.
The Son of God accomplished this in two important ways.
1. He Came to Help Save Us from Our Selfitis/ Our Sin
Listen to these words of Scripture from 1 John chapter 4.
1 John 4:9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
The reason God sent his Son to earth was to show us his love and to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. What that means was he gave his life so that our sins can be forgiven and we can be at peace, or at one with God. He came to give us new life, a fresh start, a do-over if you will. But more than that he came to clean us from the inside out. We can make New Years resolutions to quit doing the selfish things we do, but it doesn’t last because we need to be changed from the inside out, we need heart surgery. The only one qualified to change us from the inside out is God. When God changes our hearts everything else follows, we focus more on God and others needs than we do on ourselves, it becomes a real, permanent change.
But we still have another danger, the enemy, Satan. He is still going to try to make you fall, even after you accept God’s Son. In fact, he will attack you more once you’ve accepted God’s Son because you’ve made him mad. God’s Son provides another measure of protection for us against his temptations. He comes to dwell within us.
2. He Came to Be With Us and In Us Forever.
In the OT, the prophet Isaiah predicted a Savior would come and he would be called Immanuel, meaning “God with us.” And Matthew’s gospel affirms that Jesus was indeed Immanuel, God with us. Listen again to these words from Matthew spoke by the angel to Joseph:
1:20 Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us."
God came to earth in the form of a human child and was with us as the Christ child in the manger. God’s Son was with us for 33 years before he was killed. But even after his death, Jesus resurrected from the grave and appeared to his disciples and promised them, “surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Mt. 28:20).” That same promise is extended to all who are Jesus disciples, who believe and follow Jesus. He promises to be with us through all time, in the ups and the downs.
How is Jesus with us? Jesus explained to his disciples he would be with us by sending His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, who is called the comforter, or the counselor. Listen to Jesus’ promise from John’s gospel chapter 14.
15 "If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.
27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
Not only does Jesus promise that the Spirit will be with us, but that he will be in us. Strengthening us, supporting us, encouraging us, comforting us, protecting us from the enemy, and filling us with the blessings of love, joy, and peace which passes all understanding.
My question this Christmas Eve is, have you been running from God? Have you been like my little squirrel friend running away even though God is trying to help you? Are you afraid of what God will do when he catches you? The infant in the manger reminds us that God’s intentions are motivated out of love. He loved you enough to send his Son into the world, born in lowly conditions. He loved you enough to die for you. My advice is let God catch you because I guarantee you, if you receive this gift for Christmas you won’t be returning it.
How do you allow God to catch you? One of the Bible verses that says it plainly is John 3:16.
NIV John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Stop running, turn from your sin (selfitis), turn to God and believe he sent Jesus so you can be forgiven of all sin and selfishness, and have everlasting life, then let God do his work within your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. And surely he will be with you always to the very end of the age.
