God in the Manger Sermon Series - Wk 3 - The Pure to the Impure

  The rarest type of diamond is said to be a Type 2a, which is means these types of diamonds are lacking in impurities and color. One of these diamonds is called the Regent. It is 140.6 carats and is worth upwards of around 73 million dollars. The legend behind the diamond is that it was mind in India in 1687 by a man who was enslaved. When he found the diamond in its raw state, he knew it was worth the risk of taking. So the man placed the diamond in an open wound he had and smuggled it to the coast. There he met an English sea captain and told him he would split the sale of the diamond for passage on the captain’s ship. But instead, the captain killed the man and took the diamond for himself. He then sold it to a merchant, who sold it to a local English governor named Pitt. Pitt then, in 1702, smuggled the diamond to England in the heel of his son’s shoe. It took two years for the diamond cutter to shape the piece into its current form. In all Pitt had spent about 4.3 million dollars in the endeavor.

Eventually the Regent diamond was sold to a French Regent, hence the same, and was placed in the French Crown in 1717. Both Louis the 15th and 16th wore it, as did Marie Antoinette. During the French Revolution it was stolen, but was eventually recovered, and since 1887 has been on display in the Louvre.

It’s amazing how much we will spend on a piece of mineral. We will spend money and blood, to purchase something that is shiny. And the purer it is, the more we’re willing to dole out the cash. 

It’s this idea of purity that brings us back to our series on God in the manger where we’re looking at the attributes of God and seeing how those appear in the Christmas story. 

In our first week we looked at God’s limitless nature. He is the God of the omni’s, the all-powerful transcendent God. Yet in order to open the door to salvation for humanity, God the Son, the Word of God, a fully divine person of the Trinity, limited himself for a period of about thirty-three years. Still possessing the fullness of deity, he limited himself to walk with his creatures. He allowed his creatures to then crucify him, all for the purpose of providing infinite forgiveness for all those who put their trust in him as Savior.

This purposeful action led us into our second week. Where we looked at how God is personal. He’s personal in that he showed purposeful intent to bring about salvation. He showed intent in that he was working out a plan that began even before the first humans walked the earth. He proclaimed this purposes to Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds via his angels. We also saw God is personal because he has care and compassion for people. He cares that we are fearful, he cares that we are lost. Because of this, God isn’t seeking to deal with us harshly, nor is he indifferent to our sin situation. God has compassion on us, and through his purposeful action, the Son of God descends to take on human flesh and stand in our place, that we might not be condemned by our own sinful actions.

With that in mind, we turn to one of the most talked about attributes throughout all of the Scriptures: that God is the pure one, the set a part one, the holy one. 

The first time the word is used is in Genesis 2:3, where the writer notes, “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” 

In Exodus, Moses would learn that where God was, that place was considered holy ground (Ex. 3). As the Israelites entered into covenantal relationship with God, he told Moses, “5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation … (Exodus 19:5-6a)’”

The reason for them being a holy nation is because “26 You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. (Leviticus 20:26)”

The people of God recognized the holiness of God. In the book of Job we’re told, “Of a truth, God will not do wickedly, and the Almighty will not pervert justice. (34:12)”

The prophet Habakkuk proclaimed, “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong …(Habakkuk 1:13a)”

In the New Testament James wrote, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. (1:13)”

And when a man who thought he was good came to Jesus, and addressed Jesus as good, Jesus replied with, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. (Mark 10:18)” The implication is, the man didn’t understand what the holy goodness of God was, nor that he was indeed speaking to the holy God.

The holiness of God is where his goodness in rooted in. He is pure and perfect. No sin can touch him, nor can he engage in sinful activity.

This is where the Christmas story picks up. In Isaiah 9:6, a song of restoration is sung, and we’re told, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” This song proclaims that the holy God is coming to restore. He will enter into his creation to bring about his holy purposes.

Later in Isaiah, in another song, we are told how this restoration will be inaugurated. The 53rd chapter, starting in verse 4 reads, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 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. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all … And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. (v. 4-6, 9)” The holy God-child, who will become a holy God-man, will commit no wrong, yet take on the wrong of all people. He will be beat and killed, not for his own sin, but for the sins of his creatures.

Paul would write about this in 2 Corinthians 5:21, telling us that Jesus, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Seeing Jesus’ sacrifice as a holy act of a priest interceding for people, the Hebrew writer states, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (4:15)” That same writer would then later write, “For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.(7:26)”

Jesus is the holy God, who became the holy God-child, who became the holy God-man, who lived out his holiness among his creation, so that he could take the place of sinful humanity as an infinite payment for their sin. He understands our sins because he lived along side of them, yet he never succumbed to the allure of sin. He kept himself holy.

This was seen by his closest disciple, and because of that sinless life, Peter would later write, “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. ( 1 Peter 2:22-24)”

The Christmas story is that the holy God, who calls his people to be holy, descends to an unholy creation to redeem them and make them holy. The pure enters into the impure to make them pure. Paul would proclaim that the presence of the holy God dwells in everyone who trusts in Jesus as Savior. Paul writes, “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? (1 Corinthians 3:16)” 

Through this indwelling God is working to bring about holiness in us. Paul writes to the Roman Church, “28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified (8:28-30).”

God’s purpose has always been to make people holy. He made all creation good when he spoke it into being. He blessed the Sabbath as a holy day for his creation to rest with him. But with the fall of humanity, holiness was seemingly lost. But God pays the price for sin, thereby opening the door to his holiness once again. That door is Jesus himself. The fully God fully man who lived a sinless life, to pay for the sins of all who would accept the payment on their behalf. The holy God now indwells his people and is bringing them closer to his holiness in this life, and fully into that holiness in eternity.

The Christmas story is that God’s holiness becomes our holiness, through the holy Redeemer and Savior Jesus. Because of his work, Jesus’ doesn’t call his disciples sinners, but rather, saints. Which comes from the Latin word sanctus, which is translated from the Hebrew word holy. Those who have placed their trust in Jesus are his holy ones. And if the holy God calls those whom he has redeemed holy, then we need to walk in that holiness.

So my challenge for you this week is simple. Start your day off, with reciting the words of God from 1 Peter 1:16, “since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’” Then make your first request to God for the day, “Lord let me see, more today, the holy work that you have and are accomplishing in my life. I want to be holy as you are holy.”

Let us be saints who walk in the holiness of God so that others might see the mighty work of God in us that is founded in the Holy God, who became the holy God-man to redeem humanity from its sin. Amen.

God in the Manger Sermon Series - Wk 2 - The Personal Transcendent

  An older lady by the name of Mamie Adams loved going to her local post office because of the friendliness of the workers. As she did every year, she went to the post office to get stamps for her Christmas cards. But this year the line was the longest she had ever seen. As she stood there, Mamie struct up a conversation with the people around her. When the young woman behind Mamie heard why she was standing in line, she told the woman that there was a machine in the lobby that sold stamps. “That way you don’t have to keep waiting in this long line. Mamie smiled at the girl, who couldn’t be more than thirty, and said, “I know, but the machine won’t ask me about my arthritis.”

It’s the personal touch that can make the difference in a lot of things. How many of us like to talk to those automated voice recordings you get when you call a big business? When those things ask me what I want, I just keep saying, “A person,” until it tells me “I’ll get you a representative.” 

The personal touch happens when you enter a room where everyone know’s your name. If the jingle to the T.V. show Cheers just popped into your head, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The scene is of a heavier set man opening the door to that bar, and everyone shouts, “Norm!”

The personal is something that is easily lost in our society of drive thru, delivery, and Amazon. So when we experience the personal touch, it means more. 

It’s the personal that brings us back into our sermon series where we’re talking about the God in the Manger. Where we’re looking at several attributes of God and how those can be seen in the birth of the Messiah, and the taking on of human flesh by God the Son. 

Last week we started off this series by talking about the infinite God, who embraced the finite. There is nothing, except the goodness of God that constrains God. God is all the omni’s: omnipresence, omnipotent, omniscient. However it’s hard to grasp the concept of God’s infiniteness because there’s nothing we experience that is truly infinite. We might sing of undying love, but in reality there is an end to all things. What is truly amazing, is that we can grasp the concept of the infinite restricting to the finite. Things like self-control shows us what it’s like when a person holds back what they could do. In fact, one definition of true power is the ability to not respond to something though you could. So we see in the Word taking on human flesh, the infinite God the Son restricting himself for a time to the finite, for the purpose of living, dying and raising from the dead. In doing this, Jesus opens the way to salvation for all those who would accept him. 

This purposeful restricting comes about because of the second attribute that we’re going to discuss. That attribute is that God is personal. Theologian Wayne Grudem states that God “… interacts with us as a person, and we can relate to him as persons.” Another scholar, Erickson, writes “[God] is an individual being, with self-consciousness and will, capable of feeling, choosing, and having a reciprocal relationship with other personal and social beings.”

God being personal is seen throughout Scripture in things like God having a name, the fact that he interacts with his creation, and that God is treated as a being and not an object. We can see this in so many places in the Scriptures, but we’re trying to see this attribute of God being personal in the Manger. So I want to give two personal touches of God in Jesus that shows that God is personal in the Christmas story.

First, God has intended purpose in what is happening with Jesus. God sends an angel to Mary to let her know what is going on. Luke records the angel’s words, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you … Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. (1:28, 30-33)” To the shepherds, the angels proclaimed, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (Lk. 2:10-11)” And to the doubting Joseph, the angel of the Lord came and repeated the words of Isaiah, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (Matt. 1:23.)”

God’s purpose was to bring about salvation for people. Non-personal things do not have personal intention. Sure a watch has purpose in what it does, but it didn’t intend to let you know the time. A car has purpose, but it did not intend to take us to the grocery store. But a person does. A person had purpose in starting a job; a person has purpose in getting married. Individuals have the ability to act in ways that have plans to be fulfilled. God is personal because he too has purpose in all that he does, and the coming of Jesus, the wrapping of the Word in flesh, was with the purpose of saving those who would willing accept God’s purposeful action.

In that purposeful action, we can also see another sign of God being personal in the care that he has. God sent the angel to calm Jospeh, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. (Matt. 1:20-21)” God showed care with Mary, telling her do not be afraid. God showed care in the calling of the shepherds, who were of low status in their society. At the same time, God showed care for Gentile astrologers from the east. In inviting the lowly and the high of rank, and both Jew and Gentile, God showed his care in the birth of Jesus for all people.

In an article from Lesley University, they quote from the Greater Good Science Center about how care, what could also be called compassion, or empathy, “… is a building block of morality—for people to follow the Golden Rule, it helps if they can put themselves in someone else’s shoes … It is also a key ingredient of successful relationships because it helps us understand the perspectives, needs, and intentions of others.” Since God is the progenitor of the Golden Rule, we can see that he is truly personal, because he is not only compassionate with his care, but the source of compassion, which stems from his personhood.

Understanding that God is personal, is extremely important because if he isn’t, then we either have a God who is present yet is uninterested in our plight with sin, like the Allah of Islam who demands insane amounts of devotion without the assurance of salvation. Or God would be wholly absent from his creation, like the God of Deism, being indifferent of our sin, and so will not act against injustices, or move to give comfort. Yet the biblical God is very interested in what happens to his creation.

This means that he is interested in you and me. God desires a relationship with his creation. He walked with Adam in the Garden, he wrestled with Jacob, he spoke with Job, he called David a man after his own heart, and he sought humans as friends. God desires an intimate relationship with each of us. This is why Jesus spoke these chilling and life giving words, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. (Matt. 7:21)” These words are chilling in that if we do not know God and he doesn’t know us in a relational way, then we cannot enter into eternity. Doing signs and wonders isn’t the sign of knowing God, rather, it's loving the very things that God loves. Jesus summed up the whole of God’s commands in Mark 12:29-31, with loving God with everything and loving others as ourselves; to love God relationally and to extend that love to the people around us.

My challenge for you is to act on that relational love. In loving God relationally, I want to challenge you this week, that when you pray, to set aside your needs and wants, making them a secondary part of your prayers. When Jesus taught the disciples to pray, the prayer started out with God before it got to us. To love God relationally, take time everyday to praise God for who he is. I gave you two things today: God is purposeful in what he does, and as he does it, he is caring. Thank God for what he does, in both little and big things. Take time to focus on God, before moving to your needs and desires. Relationships are based on being interested in the other person, let’s get more interested in God.

Then after that, seek God to love other people. When you go out to eat, write a note that tells the waitress that God loves them, and then leave them a bigger tip. Let someone cut in front of you in the long lines, when you have a lot of groceries and they have one to two items. Do something for someone without the need to be recognized for it. Let us love others as God loves them. He gave the Son on our behalf, what is God calling us to give that others might know love.

Let’s start loving God, by loving people. If we began to love God and love people the way God created us to love, then the Gospel of Jesus would go out as a testimony to all peoples, and our Father in heaven would be glorified in us. Let us be his people, relationally loving him and others. Amen.

God in the Manger Christmas Series - Wk 1 - The Infinite in Finite

Let’s play a game called “Who Said It.” I’ll say the movie line, you shout out who said it or where it came from. 

“Here’s looking at you kid.” - Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Casablanca.

“I’m the king of the world!” - Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio), Titanic.

“You can’t handle the truth!” - Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson), A Few Good Men.

“I feel the need, the need, for speed!” - Maverick (Tom Cruise) and Goose (Anthony Edwards), Top Gun.

Okay, one more, “Phenomenal cosmic power! Itty bitty living space.” Genie (Robin Williams), Aladdin.

In Disney’s 90s movie Aladdin, the main character, Aladdin, meets the Genie in the cave of wonders. There the Genie reveals that he has this unlimited power to make all of Aladdin’s dreams come true. However, for the Genie, there are some limitations to that power and we find out about what defines him by the rules he tells Aladdin. With how the Genie references modern day celebrities, as only Robin Williams could do, we see an almost limitlessness to the character.

It’s this idea of being limitless that launches us into our Christmas series on the seeing the attributes of God in the baby of the manger. 

As we jump into this series, let’s define the next four weeks first. The omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, transcendent, holy, loving, just, matchless God, is the God that is revealed through the Bible’s sixty-sixty books. Through the interaction God has with people throughout time, we can see who he is. As one theologian wrote about God’s attributes “… we are referring to those qualities of God that constitute what he is, the very characteristics of his nature. We are not referring here to his acts, such as creating, guiding, and preserving, nor to his corresponding roles of Creator, Guide, Preserver.” God’s attributes are features of God that pertain to the triune God that we see reveled throughout both the Old and New Testaments. As that same theologian states, “The attributes are permanent and intrinsic qualities, which cannot be gained or lost.”

Christmas is the celebration of when God wrapped himself in flesh. As the apostle John wrote in his first chapter, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (Jn. 1:14, [ESV])” The prophet Isaiah said it like this, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Is. 7:14)” And again the prophet would write two chapters later, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Is. 9:6)” These are the Christmas passages that we read every year, and they tell us that the God of the omni’s is the one who is in the manger. 

So we are going to look at several of God’s attributes over the next four weeks, and see how those are brought together in the Messiah Jesus. 

Like the Genie we’re going limitless. Except God’s limitless is vastly different. The limitless that we’re talking about is God as infinite. God is greater than anything he has made, and far greater than anything that has existed or will exist. Let me give you several ideas to help with understanding God as limitless. First, God isn’t limited by space, meaning unlike us, who are limited by where we can be at any time. God is beyond the constraint of space. Another idea that walks hand-in-hand with the spaceless concept is that God is beyond space, yet has access to all things. God sees, hears, and knows what’s going on throughout his creation. These two things put together hold in tension God’s transcendence, or his being nowhere, and his immanence, or his being everywhere. Both these ideas are seen when God speaks through the prophet Jeremiah, “Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? 24 Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord. (Jer. 23:23-24)” So God is both unconfined to any place, but is also able to be in all places. One helpful definition of God’s omnipresence and omniscience speaks to this infinite attribute as, “… all things are present to God… all events are present to the divine mind…” 

This limitlessness isn’t something we can easily illustrate. If we said it was like being on the Autobahn in Germany, with it’s areas of unrestricted speed, we’d still see that there is a limit to the car’s ability. If we tried to connect it with the energy of the sun, we come face to face, with the reality of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which basically carries with it the idea that energy is depleted over time. God is beyond any limiting except in one area, and that’s not being able to sin. God is only limited in that he does only good. Therefore there’s no illustration that could do this justice.

This is the God who spoke all things into existence, that no space, or time, can confine. It’s here that the limitless God sets limits. It’s a limiting that we see in John’s opening chapter, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us … (Jn. 1:1-3,14)” Here we need a deep understanding of the triune God of Scripture. That the three persons, are all co-equal in all the attributes, glory, and majesty of the Godhead. It is the Son, the eternal Word, who descends to be clothed in the flesh of his image bearers. 

Paul writes this in his letter to the Philippians, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Phil. 2:5-7)” Verse seven is an extremely important statement on what happened when the Word of God took on flesh and in so doing limited himself. Theologian Ralph P. Martin writes that verse seven, “teaches that [Jesus’] ‘kenosis’ or self-emptying was his taking the servant’s form, and this involved the necessary limitation of his glory which he laid aside in order that he might be born in human likeness.”

Though Jesus was still fully the Word of God, though he was still God, co-equal in all things and still containing the full attribute of limitlessness that he had from eternity past, the Son limits himself for a space and time to be a servant and sacrifice for humanity. It is an overwhelming illuminating realization that the infinite God, would become finite with the intention of saving his creation. 

This is why the words of Mark Lowery’s song, “Mary Did You Know?” has such an impact. Lowery writes, 

“Did you know

That your baby boy has walked where angels trod?

And when you kiss your little baby

You've kissed the face of God …

Mary, did you know

That your baby boy is Lord of all creation …

This sleeping child you're holding

Is the Great I Am!”

The child in the manger, the one whom both angels and shepherds herald, is the limitless God who limited himself for the sake of humanity, for the sake of you and me. Never did Jesus lose his limitlessness, yet for a moment of time, compared to his eternal nature, he let himself be limited by the space of flesh and the time of roughly thirty-three years. No god of myth limits themselves for the sake of their creation, yet the true and living God did. 

The gift of the limiting of God is given to humanity, that humanity might begin to experience the limitless God. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection opens the gate to the narrow path of eternal life, which is God’s desire for all those who would accept him.

God’s intention is that whoever would accept Jesus’ as Savior, would begin to experience that eternal life today. To begin to see the limitless God in action. Where we see defeat and dead ends, God sees a limitless work through the victory found in Jesus. That victory is what God is calling each of us into.

If you have not put your trust in Jesus as Savior, the limitless God is calling you to himself. God created us to experience his eternal limitlessness, but our sin, those things that we have done in rebellion against God, have placed us in bondage. Apart from God, we are headed to an eternal separation where there is no hope. Our sin places us in that separation, in a sense, we’ve earned it (Rom. 6:23). Yet, Jesus offers his own self in our place. The limitless God, for the limited human. With him, comes limitless forgiveness and freedom, and an eternity of joy in the Lord. God is inviting you into that very relationship with him. If you feel that call today, then I want to ask you to speak with me after the service, that we might pray together as you enter into eternal life with the limitless God.

If you have put your trust into Jesus as your personal Savior, I have a challenge for you this week. What are those things that are looking like they’re dead ends? What are those things that look like there is a limit to what God can do? Is your marriage falling apart, is your career at a dead end? Are you struggling with hurt, anger, addictions, un-forgiveness? Our you feeling no hope, or peace, or love? Are you facing death itself? I want you to make a list of those things and then take them to the Lord, crying out to him as the limitless God, to show you the work he is doing so that you know there’s a path forward. This takes a humbling of us before him. It takes a life position that puts God’s will over our own (Matt. 6:10; Lk. 22:42); a position that our Savior took when speaking with the Father. 

Let us be a people who see the limitless God who has saved us through limiting himself to become a human baby that he might die on the cross, that all those who believe would experience his unlimited work and life. Amen.