He has come
John 3:16
Welcome to service everyone- I don’t know where you are listening to this from but we have gotten some snow- 10-20 inches depending on where you live. Parking lot cleared last night so we could tape the sermon. As we celebrate His coming, were also dealing with some snow coming!
I pray that God’s glorious Spirit would fall fresh on us as we look to Him. Maybe that is what we need- to be snowed in with Jesus!
Introduction-
This morning we are in the fourth week of Advent.
We have lite the candles of hope, peace, joy and now love.
As we have journeyed together, it has been my prayer that we rediscover Christmas.
Discovering that Christmas without Jesus is not Christmas!
We can have presents and decorations, we can have a time of food fellowship, but without Jesus, we cannot have Christmas.
You can call it Christmas, but without Christ it is not Christmas.
Prayer-
Father, today, would you allow us to rediscover Christmas in a fresh and powerful way. May we see the love of God not only shown in Scripture but His love would come alive in each of our hearts and life. May we walk from this place refreshed and renewed of your love for us and we show our love back to you. In Jesus name! Amen.
Text- John 3:16
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”
That is not a verse usually spoken on Christmas but when you stop and think about it. If God the Father had not sent Jesus, we would not have a celebration of salvation but a judgment of condemnation.
God’s love yet while we are sinners, He came for each of us, He sent Jesus- He has come.
For each of us on this side of the incarnation (birth) and his love shown on the cross (death) God raised him up.(His resurrection)
We experience His resurrection just like He did and can have eternal life with Him.
Somewhere down the line we have as a society watered down the gospel. (Let me explain)
The gospel is God coming to this earth to redeem mankind.
Jesus life, death, burial, and resurrection. In that order, He had to come and He had to complete the task of redemption for each of us.
We as a society have felt like we needed to help God a little bit. To soften it so as to have not so much conflict and get more people on board.
We decided to pull the boundaries out so that more people are included.
We decided to add to the gospel loop holes.
We cannot improve on the fact that God said that whosoever believes on Him shall have eternal life.
We decided… did you catch that!
That is the widest boundary God could have given provided that we believe who His Son is and what His Son has done for us. We must believe that in our hearts.
“For unto us a child is born, to us a Son is given- And He will be called wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
That is not an option! He will be. called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace
They will call him Immanuel- which means “God with us”
For the manger of Bethlehem cradles a King.
“Today in the town of David a savior has been born to you; He is the messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger”
Scripture does not have to prove itself though it does- Jesus is the savior and He came to redeem mankind. It is based upon his rules and His Word.
Illustration-
A number of years ago a Christmas card was published by the title “If Christ Had Not Come.” It was based on our Savior’s own words, “If I had not come,” in John 15:22.
The card pictured a minister falling asleep in his study on Christmas morning and then dreaming of a world into which Jesus had never come.
In his dream, he saw himself walking through his house, but as he looked, he saw no stockings hung on the chimney, no Christmas tree, no wreaths of holly, and no Christ to comfort or to save us.
He then walked onto the street outside, but there was no church with its steeple toward Heaven. And when he came back and sat down in his library, he realized that every book about our Savior had disappeared.
The minister dreamed that the doorbell rang and that a messenger asked him to visit a friend’s poor dying mother. He reached her home, and as his friend sat and wept, he said, “I have something here that will comfort you.”
He opened his Bible to look for a familiar promise, but it ended with Malachi. There was no gospel and no promise of hope and salvation, and all he could do was bow his head and weep with his friend and his mother in bitter despair.
Two days later he stood beside her coffin and conducted her funeral service, but there was no message of comfort, no words of a glorious resurrection, and no thought of a mansion awaiting her in Heaven.
There was only “dust to dust, and ashes to ashes,” and one long, eternal farewell.
Finally he realized that Christ had not come, and burst into tears, weeping bitterly in his sorrowful dream.
Then suddenly he awoke with a start, and a great shout of joy and praise burst from his lips as he heard his choir singing these words in his church nearby:
come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem!
Come and behold Him, born the King of angels, O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!
Let us be glad and rejoice today, because He has come. And let us remember the proclamation of the angel:
I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. — Luke 2:10-11
Christmas is a time of celebration- it is a time to express love to family, friends, but it has to be centered around the love of Christ and His love for us and our love back to Him.
The greatest gift of all time is the gift of God in Jesus- To miss His love for us is to miss the character of God.
Love came down so we can go up- (Repeat) He had to come meet us where we are at and take us to be where we need to go.
This world needed a savior- we had messed up a good thing and we could not fix it ourselves.
The greatest love story is John 3:16- For God so loved… that He gave and He came!
The God who created all things and was before time came in our time of need so that we might have redemption through Him.
Jesus didn’t just bring life- He brought eternal life.
He is life Himself. Not only for those who physically saw Him but for all people.
The good news of great joy was spoken.
What are you going to do with Jesus?
Christmas is a time of reflection.
You reread the Christmas story and you reflect on your relationship with the savior.
For some, it will be an attitude of gratitude and you joyfully lean in to that relationship with the hopes of drawing closer.
To some this morning, rereading and being reminded of Jesus brings us to a decision of change or a time of rejection.
There is one thing about Jesus… you cannot do nothing. To do nothing is to reject Him and keep your distance.
Don’t miss the unexpected because you think you know the expected
It may be a familiar story but God wants to speak fresh and new to you and me and does His best work in the unexpected.
Those shepherds were in the fields doing their thing and the unexpected changed their lives forever!
They had a choice- The angels proclaimed the birth of the savior (fact) and they had a choice weather they were going to see it for themselves. As they began to move out of the normal they experienced God.
When you get good news- life changing news! You go tell someone about it.
Churches should be packed because people have shared their testimony of what God did in and through their lives.
They would be packed if people lived out Christianity instead of trying to be like them. The world don’t need us to be like them. The world needs us to be more like Jesus!
The most unexpected people (shepherds) got to witness and experience God’s love for mankind.
The shepherds made known to others what God made known to them.
That is how we share the love of God.
Illustration-
Jim Cymbala, the Senior pastor at Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York shared a story of how after 4 services on Christmas week he was tired and went off platform after service and sat in first row of seats and rested and noticed a guy looking at him from the back of the auditorium. He knew that this man was going to ask for money. It happens a lot in Brooklyn Church and they had policies in place so that they don’t add to their addictions but he was tired and he was just going to give him money if he came up. The man moves front and Cymbala asks him his name and he says Dave.
How long you been on the street- 4 months.
Why don’t you go to a shelter- too dangerous.
He sees this man is un-kept and smelled so bad he could hardly stand by him. He reaches in his pocket and pulls out his money clip and begins to give him some money.
The man pushes his hand away and says I don’t want your money- I want the Jesus that you have been talking about.
Pastor Cymballa says that God convicted him right there and he began asking God to forgive him.
He said that he forgot about the man and just was repentant to God for his behavior.
The man seeing that God got a hold of his heart began hugging him.
The Lord said to Jim Cymballa, if you don’t love that smell of this man, I cannot use you.
To me the world smells like that to me.
I have come for sin and that is what it smells like to me.
This man received the Lord and got active in the church and became a minister.
God works in the unexpected when you come expecting Him to do it- let me explain- you come with an expectant heart and leave the way up to God.
It will usually be in a way that you don’t expect.
The good news did not just come to you so that you would be saved from your sin.
It came to you so that you can take that good news to others.
If you do not see love in that manger- you missed Christmas.
1700 ministers a month (yes a month) are leaving the ministry- why? Because loving people like Jesus wants us to love them is messy and complicated.
Why will there be a falling away of people in their faith in end times?
Because it is messy and complicated.
We cannot do it in our own strength and our own love- we need God’s love to be poured out-
People smell bad
It is messy
It is complicated- but He tells us that we are not to love like the world but love like He does.
We are not to love only those who love us, but we are to love our enemies.
Because if we just love those who love us, we are not showing the love of Christ.
You cannot love like that without Jesus!
Jesus said without me, you can do nothing- nothing of eternal value.
Close-
We celebrate Christmas because we also know about Good Friday and Easter- Birth, Death, Burial, Resurrection!
Until you experience Christ- you will never be able to explain His love to anyone else.
Until you look in that manger and call on Jesus to be your savior, you can and will get distracted by all the other things we do at Christmas time.
Just like the shepherds, we have to make know to others what God has made known to us!
FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM SHALL NOT PERISH BUT HAVE ETERNAL LIFE.
Prayer-
