Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Well, let's stand this morning as we go to the Lord in prayer.
[00:00:05] So Father, we do come before you this morning with gratitude and thanksgiving. And we know we're celebrating special time in the Christian calendar, a time when we celebrate your coming to our planet, Lord, to bring redemption to us.
[00:00:21] But Lord, we're also realizing that in this redemption, Lord, there's another hope that we have beyond that moment.
[00:00:28] We're looking forward to your soon return. And Father, I pray, Lord, in the days to come that you will help us to have our hearts readied and prepared, Lord, so that if you should come unexpectedly, that we would be so excited and ready, Father, to see our redemption and the transformation of our world. And we thank you for that. In Jesus name, amen. Amen. You may be seated.
[00:00:57] I want us to turn in our Bibles to a very unusual passage of scripture. To talk about Christmas, I'm going to turn to Genesis, chapter three.
[00:01:05] The first Christmas did not happen in a vacuum.
[00:01:09] I don't think we understand the need for the Christmas story simply from the birth of Christ.
[00:01:15] We need to go back to the beginning of the human story to really understand why God in the person of Jesus Christ, had to come to our planet.
[00:01:26] What necessitated the need for God to become a man, to live a sinless life, to die a cruel death?
[00:01:33] The Bible states that we as human beings are the crowning achievement of his creation. Isn't that amazing? Human beings, we're made in his very image.
[00:01:45] However, even in the sinless paradise that humanity, man found himself in, there came a temptation.
[00:01:52] The temptation was simply that God, our creator, was withholding from the created something of good.
[00:02:02] God's goodness was being challenged. And as a result, the first human couple rebelled from an amazingly transparent and sinless life to one now tainted and ultimately corrupted by evil.
[00:02:15] The result was that the image of God was marred in their lives. And you and I have experienced it. We're all descendants from that first couple.
[00:02:24] And sin has a work inside of us that literally dehumanizes us. We don't recognize it because we're living in a fallen world and we think fallenness is normal, when in reality that was not God's original intention.
[00:02:39] So God is in the business of restoration. You know, sometimes when we think about salvation, we always think about, okay, God's going to forgive me. But it's more than that. God wants to do a work of restoring what he first intended in our lives. And this is the exciting thing about becoming a follower of Jesus. This amazing work of restoration that begins in our Journey of faith.
[00:03:08] So what I mean by that statement, by being dehumanized is simply that we were created to reflect the nature and the goodness of our Creator. Wouldn't it be beautiful if everybody reflected the nature of God in our world today? Wouldn't that be awesome? You know, we'd be reflecting kindness and generosity and goodness and hope. We'd be just reflecting these beautiful attributes of the nature of God. And I believe that's what God wants happen in our world today.
[00:03:39] But with the birth of sin in the human family, sickness followed. We've all experienced that alienation, relationships broken. And then we see ultimate the separation caused by death.
[00:03:54] And this has gone on generation after generation. But God in his amazing mercy and grace, had a plan.
[00:04:03] You know, this didn't take God by accident. You know, like, oops, I created humanity perfect. But all of a sudden, boom, my creation was spoiled. God in his foreknowledge, knew that, given man a freedom to choose. And by the way, God did give humanity that freedom of choice, didn't he? You know, because we're made in the image of God. We're made with that ability to create. We're made in an image so that you and I make choices.
[00:04:29] And so for God to have created humanity without the ability to make a choice, then we would have just been a bunch of robots down here. But that's not the way it works. And so God wants a relationship, but relationship can only be fostered through a power of choice. And you and I are making choices every single day. That's part of the human condition. And we can make good choices or we can make poor choices, but we have that ability to. To make choices.
[00:04:59] So oftentimes in beginnings, as we see at the beginning of the story of humanity here, they're fragile and they're open to temptation or even to subtle spiritual attacks. And we see that early in the life of Jesus, you know, as Herod tried to have him killed because he was obviously insecure as a leader.
[00:05:21] And eventually, when he discovered from the magi, when they had first seen the star and they had come to worship the child. And by the way, I know we like to have nativity scenes and we put the wise men in there with the shepherds. But I don't want to mess with your nativity scene, but I'll just let you know, the wise men did not show up on the night that Jesus was born. Okay, let's just, you know, biblically speaking, they probably showed up a couple of years later.
[00:05:47] And that's why herod had the children in Bethlehem killed from two years and under because he wanted to make sure he was destroying what he perceived as a threat to his authority.
[00:06:00] It's interesting that the Danish theologian, the 19th century Danish theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, tells, you know, basically the idea of gods invading the planet. And in the story he says, there's a king like no other king. Every statesman trembled before his power. No one dared breathe a word against him, for he had the strength to crush all opponents.
[00:06:24] It's a metaphor he's about to share with us. And yet this mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden. And how could he declare his love for her? And in an odd sort of way, his very kingliness tied his hands. If he brought her to the palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed her body in royal robes, she would surely not resist, for no one dared to resist him.
[00:06:47] But would she love him?
[00:06:49] She would surely say she loved him, of course. But would she truly? Or would she live with him and fear, nursing a private grief for the life that she had left behind? Would she be happy at his side? And how could he know if he rode to her forest cottage in his rural carriage with an armed escort, waving bright banners, that too would overwhelm her. He did not want a cringing subject. He wanted her to forget that he was king and. And she a humble maiden, and to let their love be shared across that great gulf.
[00:07:19] The king, convinced that he could not elevate the maiden without crushing her freedom, resolved to descend.
[00:07:26] And he clothed themselves as a beggar and approached her cottage incognito, with a worn cloak fluttering loosely about him. It was no mere disguise, but a new identity he had taken on. For he, at that moment, had renounced the throne to win her hand. Now, Kierkegaard is using a parable or metaphor to describe what Paul speaks of to us in the book of Philippians. In Philippians chapter two, he said, speaking of Jesus, who, being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant and being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
[00:08:20] So now you're probably wondering, what does this have to do with Christmas?
[00:08:25] Well, the answer is everything.
[00:08:27] You see, the king came with a purpose in mind. To win the hand of the maiden. He came with love in his heart.
[00:08:35] He came into this own world, God himself, the Creator of our world. Having seen our world fractured by sin, came into this world to redeem us from our sin.
[00:08:47] Though I'm not generally surprised by human failure, I still marvel today by God's goodness and grace.
[00:08:55] That's what overwhelms me.
[00:08:58] We're going to see today how God comes to us, how he comes to restore relationships where sin and death has entered into our world, where relationships have been affected and barriers have been created between a man and a woman.
[00:09:13] God himself looks at this situation and says, I'm going to restore not only my relationship with humanity to myself, but I'm going to restore relationships between one another. And only God can bring this about in our lives.
[00:09:28] I want to take a look at three things that when God came. Now I want you to remember in the garden story, we had the serpent that came first, right? And he tempted humanity, he tempted Adam and Eve, and they fell. But in the same story, God came.
[00:09:43] And that's the part I want us to look at today. The first thing we need to consider when God comes is that he always comes to us in grace.
[00:09:52] I love that about God.
[00:09:54] Grace is the idea of something that's not earned, it's not deserved, it's not warranted, it's not merited. You and I can't receive it because we've done enough for it. God, by his very nature, is gracious and he comes to all of us in the various moments in our lives when we least deserve it. And he comes and shows us something we don't deserve. He shows us grace, he shows us kind of kindness. He shows us goodness.
[00:10:22] He's great.
[00:10:24] The reality when I think about it, is he didn't come in anger. And when I thought about it, God was actually in the garden even when the serpent was there. God had never abandoned humanity. The reality was he didn't stop them from making the wrong choice.
[00:10:42] You know how many times as human beings we can see things developing in people's lives and. And you want to rescue people. Anybody besides me want to go, don't go there. It's not going to work the way you think, right?
[00:10:56] But you know, God doesn't stop people from making wrong choices. How many have discovered that? He lets us make the wrong choice. He lets us do the wrong thing. And we suffer as a result of making sinful choices in our lives.
[00:11:13] But the key to restoration in relationships, I believe, is the spirit and tone in which we relate to each other. Now, I want you to notice how gently God comes to this couple hiding in sin. That's the part that really touched me. He didn't come, as I said, in anger. The reality he was there the whole time. But now God comes to each of us, right where we're at in our brokenness, in our failure. He knows what's going on. And before they hear his voice, I want you to notice what God does. They hear the sound of the Lord walking in the garden. Okay?
[00:11:53] Says in verse eight of chapter three, then the man and the woman heard the sound of the Lord as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And they hid from the Lord among the trees, the of the garden. I really like the way Dr. Walke frames this incident. He said the gardener had not abandoned his garden. The proof of love is the unwillingness to abandon the object of love, even when love fails to achieve its desired end.
[00:12:21] What does he mean? He's just basically saying, even though we fail, God still doesn't fail us.
[00:12:27] Isn't that beautiful? Even though we abandon him, he doesn't abandon us. Even though we might reject and rebel against Him. God does not turn away his back from us, but approaches us. He's interested in us.
[00:12:44] We know that this is an expression of speech, the fact that he's walking in the garden. How many realize that it's to show us the gracious nature of God, even though we're in our sin and shame? I like what James Boice says. The problem was not in the voice.
[00:13:02] For the voice of God was gentle and filled with love.
[00:13:06] God sometimes speaks in judgment when the voice is terrifying. But this was not the case in the Garden of Eden. Everything in God's manner was as before. He was walking, not running. He arrived in the cool of the day, the most pleasant time, rather than in the heat of the afternoon or in the dark of night, when all human fears seemed doubly fearful. He did not come suddenly. He came by degrees, calling as he came. No, it was not the voice or manner of God's coming that terrified Adam and Eve.
[00:13:39] It was the fact that they had sinned. And when one has sinned against God, even the tenderest of voices can be frightening. And so they hid.
[00:13:49] Isn't that the truth?
[00:13:50] It's usually our shame that moves us away from God.
[00:13:54] It's usually our guilt that moves us away from God. You know, I remember reading a number of years ago the difference between guilt and shame. And I really embrace this definition because it gives a sense of the difference in my mind. Guilt is feeling bad for what I've done.
[00:14:09] But shame is feeling bad for who I am.
[00:14:13] And I want to say something to all of us today. A lot of times, even though we know that God says He forgives us, many times we struggle with shame.
[00:14:20] Sometimes we struggle with the idea that I don't feel good about who I am.
[00:14:25] But I want to declare to you today that Jesus not only died to take away our sin and our guilt, but he also died to take away our shame. That you and I no longer have to feel bad about who we are. Because God wants to do something so profound in our life, he creates within you and me a new nature. We are now no longer the person we once were. You, you say, yeah, but I still feel like that person. I still struggle with some of the same things. But I want to declare to you that every day that you and I are walking with God, we are becoming every day more and more like him because we're following after him. And we begin to embrace the nature of God. And so we are being changed step by step, day by day. It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful life. And so God begins to remove the sense of God, guilt and shame in our lives.
[00:15:18] We need to accept that this gift from God, it's a powerful thing. And I think a lot of people still are struggling with things like guilt and shame. I want to declare to you today you're free from this. If you've come to Jesus, that's why he came, to redeem you from that situation.
[00:15:35] The Bible says, but the Lord called to the man, where are you now? God asked a question to draw them out of their hiding. How many know that God knew where they were? But he's not an accuser.
[00:15:47] Accusation is the work of Satan. He is the accuser of the brethren. The Bible says, God comes to us in gentleness and grace. You know, this is how we need to come to each other. We need to come the same way God comes to us, with gentleness and grace. Notice Paul's challenge to the people of God. In the book of Galatians. He said, brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently.
[00:16:17] Why?
[00:16:19] He warned, but watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. What is he saying? That there's none of us in this room above temptation, not one of us. And so we need to be a lot more humble and more gentle with one another and helping each other move beyond these things in our lives that would trip us up. You know, Gary Thomas wrote a book called Sacred Influence. And in that he shares A story of a couple, Ken and Diana. Now, these are fictitious names, but he said they were in a deep marital crisis. And Ken came one day to his wife, Diana, and he said that he cared for her, but he didn't love her anymore. And there was a kind of a emotional disconnect.
[00:17:00] And the timing of that announcement was. Couldn't have come at a worse time. Their teenage daughter was in a crisis, and she was dealing with major stress issues at her work, which, in hindsight, had not helped their marriage.
[00:17:12] And Diana told Ken that he needed to stay regardless of how he felt about her.
[00:17:18] But now they were sharing the same house. They were emotionally miles apart, you know, just living together.
[00:17:24] But this crisis caused Diana to come to a renewed faith in God, and she began to seek God. And during that time, there came a phone call.
[00:17:35] Do you know what your husband's doing with my daughter? You see, Ken had developed an Internet relationship around a mutual interest and was planning on meeting this other woman who was also married and had children. And that's when Diana took action that both she and Ken later believed saved their marriage.
[00:17:52] She drove to her friend's place and angrily told her friend what was happening. See, your friend had experienced a similar incident and understood the sense of betrayal that she was experiencing when she returned home to confront her husband. She had processed all of the anger that was within her spirit. How many know that if you confront people in anger, you're not going to get a good outcome?
[00:18:18] How many know that's true?
[00:18:20] You're just not going to get a good outcome. But by this time, she had finally settled down and realized that, you know, being angry wasn't going to save the situation. So she drove up to their house. She said, ken, we need to talk.
[00:18:33] And he said, why? And then she gave the name of his chat room friend. His face turned white. Obviously, he was caught. And with remarkable detachment, without any accusation and fierce emotion, they finally sat down and talked. And finally, Ken began to see the ridiculous nature of the situation.
[00:18:53] She spoke firmly but maintained a light air.
[00:18:59] But once it was all done, they were able to start working on their relationship.
[00:19:06] Not once did she swear at him, call him any of the names that she had uttered at her friend's place. And Ken later told his wife, if she had reacted to him in the way she had talked to her friend, he would have bolted. But instead, he saw a picture of God's grace and mercy through his wife and made all the difference in their relationship.
[00:19:26] He immediately contacted that other woman and ended that relationship.
[00:19:30] You see, when God comes to us. He comes in grace. And when we come to each other, this is the necessary way to approach situations. The second thing we need to consider when God comes to us is that he comes to us in justice.
[00:19:44] You say, well, what is justice?
[00:19:46] Well, I'm going to give you a real simple definition from Webster. It's the use of authority to uphold what is right, just or lawful. We need to understand that as part of God's creation, you and I are accountable to God.
[00:19:59] We are actually created beings with a moral accountability to Him. And he will judge us for our sins if we don't address them at the cross.
[00:20:11] In other words, if we don't come to God for mercy and forgiveness. Now, in light of his loving action of Christ's death and resurrection, we will be faced with unresolved sin issues at the end of this age.
[00:20:23] And let me just say this. We are all, as I've said, morally accountable to God.
[00:20:29] All of our denials of God, our rejection, our unbelief and rebellion as human beings. The reality is we will all give an account before God.
[00:20:38] The book of Hebrews says it. Just as man is destined to die once and after that to face judgment. In Romans, it says, for we will all stand before God's judgment seat.
[00:20:49] It is written, as surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me, every tongue will acknowledge God. So then each of us will give an account of himself or herself before Almighty God. Isn't that true? We will. We'll stand before Him. So here we see at the very beginning an accounting of their actions.
[00:21:11] But why does God have to judge sin, Pastor?
[00:21:14] Well, Frederick Buechner said it so well. He said romantic love is blind to everything except that which is lovable and lovely. But Christ's love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ's love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything that is in us. That diminishes our joy. And you say, well, what diminishes our joy? Well, our sin.
[00:21:42] The sin within our lives. The worst sentence love can pass is that we can behold the suffering which love has endured for our sake. And that is also our acquittal.
[00:21:54] The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one. Well, what's he basically saying?
[00:22:00] He's saying basically that God took his own punishment for our sin.
[00:22:06] But why did he do that? Because he knew that sin was what was diminishing and destroying us. You know, I kind of. I said it this way.
[00:22:14] God is going to deal with the elephant in the room now, how many know? There's a lot of people out here. We're living in denial. There's families living in denial. There's individuals living in denial. There's an elephant in the room and we pretend it doesn't exist. And, you know, it doesn't go away.
[00:22:31] It just gets worse. We have to address it. So God's response to Adam's answer, being naked and hiding from God's presence, is to confront the issue of sin in his life.
[00:22:42] And I'm going to tell you something, that's a loving thing to do. Just like that wife confronted her husband. You know, it's difficult to confront people, but when we leave things unaddressed, it never gets better.
[00:22:55] It just only gets worse.
[00:22:58] And he said, who told you you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?
[00:23:05] How many know? Most of us don't like confrontation. Isn't that true?
[00:23:09] Yeah, we kind of avoid it at all cost.
[00:23:12] But as I said, it only makes things worse because we don't deal with them.
[00:23:16] We have to address issues that only alienate and will eventually affect others in a negative way.
[00:23:23] Not dealing with sin eventually brings alienation. It's the way it works.
[00:23:30] So now we see the real consequences of sin. Sin brings guilt. Notice that they now realize they were naked and hid from God. They had violated God's word, which is his will.
[00:23:41] Theologian Augustus Strong says it this guilt is an objective result of sin, is an offense against God, is an act or state of opposition to his will which has for its effects God's personal wrath. This guilt or obligation to satisfy the outraged holiness of God is explained in the New Testament by the term debt or debtor. And this is what Jesus meant when he taught his disciples to pray. Remember, in Matthew's Gospel, he uses those words, debt and debtor. He said, forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. There's an indebtedness.
[00:24:20] Not only does sin bring guilt, but it also brings condemnation.
[00:24:24] The serpent was the first to be condemned without any opportunity to confess. Some people say, well, why didn't he get an opportunity? Because he knew better. God had thrown him out of heaven. He was in a state of rebellion against God. The woman was condemned to sorrow and childbearing, and the man was to live in struggle and toil for the rest of his life.
[00:24:44] But we see that, yes, there was a consequence to sin. And this is the thing I think we need to understand. A lot of people go, well, yeah, but God will forgive me if I sin. Well, that's true, but there's always a consequence to sin. How many recognize that it always affects you in a negative way. And I'm saying it's far wiser to avoid it.
[00:25:05] It's just you escape the consequences when you obey what God is telling you to do. And you'll be so thankful you won't experience those terrible consequences. Now, does God not forgive people after they've sin? Course he does, but that doesn't mean he eradicates consequences.
[00:25:22] Sometimes we have consequences as a result of sinful actions in our lives. And I think most of us that are a little older recognize that. And so we're telling you, pay attention. You want to avoid those things.
[00:25:40] Finally, we see the act of separation that occurred not only between Adam and Eve, but ultimately the separation from paradise and their unique and unhindered relationship with God. There was a price to be paid.
[00:25:53] So how does you know? Let me just move on here to the third point.
[00:25:58] The third thing he comes in. Goodness.
[00:26:03] After their failure, God could have said, I'm going to start over again.
[00:26:09] He didn't do that.
[00:26:11] He didn't just create a new world. He didn't just create a new couple.
[00:26:15] You know, he could have rejected Adam and Eve, but what he did instead was to demonstrate how good he really was and is.
[00:26:23] We've all sinned.
[00:26:25] It's the plight of the human race. So here we see God showing us how he's going to go about addressing the issue of sin in our lives.
[00:26:35] And, and I'm going to say one thing about it. You know, I had this little epiphany today. I was thinking about this.
[00:26:42] The Bible says the wages of sin is death.
[00:26:45] And then God finally, you know, remember when you're reading Genesis, you get these long timelines of people's living lives for a long period of time. Remember how many remember reading the beginning of the book? You know, Methuselah lived 969 years. He's the oldest guy that ever lived. You know, they lived a long time. And then all of a sudden, you know, as you keep reading, that God shortened the time.
[00:27:05] You ever wondered about that? Why did God do that? I'm going to tell you what I think. I can't prove this, but I have a suspicion this is the way it works, that every day a person is in rebellion towards God and they're moving away from God.
[00:27:20] Here's the danger. You become a little less like God.
[00:27:25] Every day you live life apart from God, you become a little less like God.
[00:27:30] And so you can imagine how much more broken you are over 50 years than you are over 20 years.
[00:27:37] And if you live 100 years, just think about how broken you are because you spent 100 years away from God and you're becoming more fragmented, more broken in your life. Sin is having a greater control and a greater dominance in your life. Can you imagine if a person lived a thousand years in rebellion towards God, how much more evil that person would gradually become?
[00:28:00] I think God in his mercy, just said, that's enough.
[00:28:03] I'm giving you this level of time, but I'm giving you these years, the space, so that you would take the opportunity to awaken to the reality of the goodness and grace of Almighty God and respond to him by changing your mind and responding in obedience to who God is and repenting. Repentance means that change not only your thinking about who God is, but change your behavior in light of what you're thinking, and you turn your back on your former way of life and you turn towards God and you start to walk towards him. And every day you walk towards God. Here's the good news. You become every day a little bit more like Him. And as you and I start yielding to God day by day, your nature, the divine nature, God's nature inside of you has a greater grasp in your life. And all of a sudden, you're being changed from glory to glory, from faith to faith, from strength to strength. Something is changing inside of you. And as you look back over the years, you say to yourself, I'm not the person I once was. I'm handling things differently today. You know, spending time daily with God, what an amazing thing it is. Your mind becomes renewed, you become transformed. You begin to look at life through a whole different lens. You begin to see, see things differently. All of a sudden, the things that the rest of the people are eating, all of the evil, the garbage, all of the despair and the distress in life, all of a sudden you have a different vantage point. You see that God is the ultimate authority. God is in control of this world. You recognize historically that these kingdoms that once rose up and were great and nobody thought would ever fall, they're no longer on the face of the earth anymore.
[00:29:46] And then you realize, like Psalm 2, where God says, and these men, kings and leaders, raged against God and God said they were trying to break, that says, their shackles from following God and going their own way. And God said, he laughed. The futility of human beings in a state of rebellion against God. We are no match for God, folks.
[00:30:10] And the sad part Is that humanity sees God as being overbearing and controlling, when in reality, God is full of grace and full of goodness.
[00:30:22] That's what we need to see.
[00:30:24] And so we see it here in Genesis, chapter three. God made a provision for us because of our sin. He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers, speaking to the serpent, and he will crush your head and you will strike his heel. And here's the first promise in scripture of a coming savior to address the sin issue and destroy the works of the devil.
[00:30:48] He's only coming to steal, kill and to destroy.
[00:30:53] That's the purpose of Satan. You know, I thought about it, you know, when you and I follow, you know, when somebody's stealing, they're actually following in the footsteps of Satan. He's a stealer, He's a destroyer, he's a killer.
[00:31:08] God is unlike that.
[00:31:10] God is for life.
[00:31:12] Satan is for death.
[00:31:15] It's an incredible paradox, isn't it? God is for love.
[00:31:19] Satan's full of hate. God speaks the truth. Satan's full of lies. That's his language and God's calling us to be like him.
[00:31:30] Secondly, God tempers judgment with mercy.
[00:31:34] He clothed them in their nakedness. He provided a sacrifice for their sinfulness. It was Griffin Thomas that said, redemption is not only promised in the word, it's pictured. Indeed, man attempted to cover shame by the leaves of the fig tree, but that was far too slight a covering for so deep a shame. The mention of skin suggests the fact and necessity of the death of the animal before they could be used as clothing. And it is more than probable that in this fact we have the primal revelation of sacrifice. In other words, God is teaching a lesson to, you know, first fathers, first father and mother. He's teaching them the lesson that the wages of sin is death. And so this animal now has to die in place of you so that you can be clothed, that you can be covered from your sin and your shame.
[00:32:26] And God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and he clothed them. You know, that's what God does when you and I come to him. He clothes us with a garment. It's called righteousness.
[00:32:38] We have a robe of righteousness. This is going to be amazing. We're going to get to heaven. You know, I don't think we see clearly right now. We're seeing darkly, but we're going to see clearly. We're going to see people that are going to have robes of righteousness.
[00:32:51] But I think you kind of sometimes see it in people's countenances. And you can see it in people's lives. You know, the goodness that is emanating from certain people, you can see that righteousness in their lives. It's very powerful. And then you see other people, they're downcast and they're troubled. You can see it in their countenance. You can see the brokenness in their lives. That's not the way God designed us to live, folks. God designed to transform our lives.
[00:33:19] God made a provision to terminate the eternal condition. James Boyce said, if Adam and Eve had been allowed to live forever, they would have lived as sinners.
[00:33:28] But they were to be set free from sin only by a literal death and resurrection.
[00:33:33] And the Lord God said, the man has now become like one of us, Knowing good and evil. He must not allow to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever. Wouldn't that be a tragedy to be, you know, a sinner living forever? Well, there's going to be an eternal soul there.
[00:33:52] So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. And he drove the man out and he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. What is God basically saying is he's not going to allow us to have eternal life. If we're living in a state of sin, he's not going to give us eternal life.
[00:34:16] I'm not talking about living as a soul in eternity, in hell. I'm not talking about that. I think that's going to happen. What I'm talking about is eternal life is not just forever life. Eternal life is a quality of life.
[00:34:28] You see, Jesus said, I've come to give you life, and that more abundantly. Jesus is talking about the quality of life that you and I have. The moment you and I come to God, we have this relationship with God that transforms life for us. We begin to have life in a totally different way. We begin to experience a joy that we never had before. We have a peace that we never knew before. We have love in our heart that we never had before. We have an ability to grow in our relationship with God and with other people. It's a very amazing thing. It's a wonderful life.
[00:35:06] Finally, God in Christ addresses the consequences of our sin. In Romans, chapter 8, we see the great reversal of our sin and its consequences. In Christ, the issue of guilt is addressed. It says here who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. In other words, bring all the charges you want against me. But Christ has forgiven me. Thank God. You know what animal sacrifices could not do? Christ's sacrifice accomplished the removal of guilt.
[00:35:38] The law. As the writer of Hebrews says, the law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming, not the realities themselves. For the reason it could never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. What is he saying? He's saying the Old Testament, they had a sacrificial system, but they had to come back every year, confess their sins over and over and over again. It was repeated over and over and over again. But look what happens now. Otherwise they would have stopped being offered, for the worshipers would have been cleansed once and for all and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. That's why they kept coming back.
[00:36:16] But because of what Christ did.
[00:36:19] But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins.
[00:36:23] It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. But when Jesus came, John said of Jesus, behold the Lamb of God. Who does what.
[00:36:33] Who takes away the sins of the world. I want you to hear this. Your sin has been taken from you.
[00:36:41] It's not your sin anymore. It was removed.
[00:36:46] Isn't that beautiful? Yes.
[00:36:49] We need to get a hold of this.
[00:36:51] The Bible says, as far as the east is from the west, so far have I removed your iniquities from you.
[00:36:59] Jesus takes away our sin. I love that.
[00:37:04] Not only that. In Christ the issue of condemnation is addressed.
[00:37:08] Who then is the one that condemns Christ? Jesus, who died more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
[00:37:20] So every accusation coming against you, you have counsel in heaven. Jesus stands up and says, father, I took that sin.
[00:37:31] I took that sin.
[00:37:33] I took that sin.
[00:37:36] There's now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus. We have been forgiven. There's only one condemn. That's Satan. In Christ, the issue of separation is addressed. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger or sword?
[00:37:55] No. In all these things, we're more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I'm convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
[00:38:18] Nothing can separate you and me from God's love.
[00:38:22] Is that beautiful? I love it. Well, let me close.
[00:38:26] When God comes, He addresses the issue of our sin, our separation, not only between ourselves and God, but between each other.
[00:38:38] Until we deal with the sin issue in our lives, we're left in guilt, condemnation and separation. But when God comes and we respond to his invitation, he removes the guilt, the shame, the condemnation, and the separation.
[00:38:56] Amen.
[00:38:57] Let's stand.
[00:39:00] Okay.
[00:39:02] That was a very different Christmas sermon.
[00:39:06] You know, when we have Christmas, I think it gets so caught up with all the other paraphernalia that we lose the heart of it.
[00:39:16] I just stripped it down today.
[00:39:19] Why did Jesus come?
[00:39:21] To deal with our sin.
[00:39:24] To deal with condemnation, to deal with separation, to deal with shame. How many say, thank God he came?
[00:39:34] Thank God he came.
[00:39:35] It's historical. Jesus came to Earth, folks. He changed the history of our world.
[00:39:42] It's never been the same.
[00:39:44] You know, a lot of people want to live in denial. You can't.
[00:39:48] It's historical.
[00:39:50] He came. He changed this entire world.
[00:39:53] But what's even more exciting is he can change our lives.
[00:39:58] He can change our lives right now, 20, 25. He can change our lives right now in this very moment. He can change marriages today.
[00:40:08] He can change, you know, the shame and guilt that you've been living underneath. He can change the direction of your life. He can move you from living a life of, you know, continuous, you know, condemnation, continuous despair, continuous, you know, doubt.
[00:40:30] And he can move you towards a life of hope and of joy and of peace and of love and of grace and relationships being restored.
[00:40:44] It's a beautiful, beautiful thing that he came to do.
[00:40:49] Why did God do it?
[00:40:51] God loves us.
[00:40:53] God is full of grace.
[00:40:56] God is going to deal with the problems in our life because he's just.
[00:41:00] But God is good.
[00:41:03] That's why he did it.
[00:41:04] It's who he is.
[00:41:07] Maybe you're here today. Maybe you're listening to this message and you're going, wow, this is interesting. I never thought of Christmas like this before. I want you to think about it today.
[00:41:19] I want you to respond to it today.
[00:41:21] I want you to turn to him today. Maybe you're even a child of God. Maybe you even made a commitment to Christ. But you're just going, man, I am not experiencing what you're talking about, Pastor. I feel like my life is lived around myself. I'm in my own little world here.
[00:41:37] I want to challenge you today to surrender every fiber of your being to Him.
[00:41:44] I believe that if you'll give Yourself fully to God, and you'll say, okay, God, here's my life. I'm just going to give you everything about my life. I believe that you designed me. I believe you created me. I believe you have a purpose for me. I believe there's a will for me. I'm going to give myself totally to you. I'm going to abandon myself fully to you.
[00:42:03] I'm going to make you a promise that you will never regret that decision.
[00:42:08] And I know that because I did it.
[00:42:11] And for over 50 years now, this has been the greatest life.
[00:42:17] You know, Patty and I were talking. We have lived the best life.
[00:42:21] God, by his grace, reached down and took, you know, my broken life, her broken life, even before I knew her, you know, and reached out in our. In our darkness, in our brokenness, in our condemnation, in our sin and our shame, and brought healing and wholeness and gave us a life worth living and gave us meaning and purpose and has blessed our lives all of these years.
[00:42:50] You say it's always been easy, Pastor. No, it's not always been easy. It's been challenging at times. But I'm going to tell you something.
[00:42:56] Something has been changing inside of us every day. Walking with God, becoming more like him with every head bowed. This morning, I'm going to ask the question, where are you at with God?
[00:43:11] Where are you at this Christmas? Are you battling shame today?
[00:43:15] Guilt?
[00:43:18] You know, because I think sometimes, you know, we could say all kinds of nice things, but maybe you're struggling with despair today or hopelessness or fear.
[00:43:28] I want you to turn those all over to God.
[00:43:31] He's bigger than every problem you have.
[00:43:34] He's bigger than all the evil in our world. Can I just give you the good news? He's going to conquer all this evil.
[00:43:41] It's all coming down, folks. It's a charade.
[00:43:45] All of this rebellion and haughtiness against God is all going to come down. I know. I've read the last book of the Bible. I know it's going to happen.
[00:43:54] Because what God says, he must do. Because God is truth and he honors his word above his name.
[00:44:01] Maybe you're here today. Say, you know, Pastor, I have to admit, I've never fully surrendered.
[00:44:08] I'm still got, you know, I'm still doing my own thing.
[00:44:13] But I'm going to ask you today, absolute surrender.
[00:44:17] God is calling for absolute surrender. And when you make that decision, your life will change.
[00:44:24] Your life will change.
[00:44:27] But it calls for absolute surrender.
[00:44:30] And that's you this morning.
[00:44:33] Just raise your hand, say, okay, God. Both hands, an act of absolute surrender. You could be a child of God, but you're just saying, today it's absolute surrender.
[00:44:44] Yep. Many people are lifting their hands saying, okay, I'm surrendering fully.
[00:44:50] That's good, because I'm going to tell you, I'm going to make this promise to you.
[00:44:54] Your life's going to be different.
[00:44:57] Because when you say yes to God and you start saying yes to God every single day from now on, you get up in the morning and it's yes to God, first thing you do, spend time with God.
[00:45:08] I'm getting to know you.
[00:45:10] I'm absolutely surrendered every day to do your will. Not mine, yours.
[00:45:15] It changes everything. I guarantee it. It'll change everything, Lord, I just thank you this morning. You're speaking into hearts.
[00:45:24] You're speaking into our hearts, Lord.
[00:45:26] You're challenging us, Lord, in light of all the challenges in our world today, to surrender absolutely to you and to experience a love, a joy, a hope, a grace that we've never known as completely as we're going to know it.
[00:45:44] You're going to keep showing us more of yourself day by day. You're going to help us to become more like you day by day.
[00:45:52] And we thank you for it.
[00:45:54] In Jesus name, amen. God bless you as you leave this morning.
