The Promise 6: Love

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B: Isaiah 7:14

N:

Welcome

Good morning, and Merry Christmas to you all! Thank you for being with us this morning as we reflect on, celebrate, and worship the Savior of the world, born in a stable and laid in a manger nearly 2,000 years ago. If you’re visiting with us this morning, either here in the room or online, I just want to thank you for being here, and ask that you would text the word WELCOME to 505-339-2004 and click the link that you receive back. That will take you to our digital communication card. If you could take a moment to fill that out to let us know you were here, we’d really appreciate it. If you’d rather fill out a card by hand, they are in the backs of the pew in front of you. If you’re a guest, I’d love to give you a Christmas present to thank you for being here today. Please come and see me at the close of service for that.

I need to make two very brief announcements this morning:

Announcements

I know it’s Christmas, but we have to plan to “undeck” the halls. We’ll be doing that at 9am on Saturday, December 31. Come and be a part of the fellowship as we take down our Christmas decorations.

We are taking up our annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions through December and January. Our goal as a church is $35,000, and through last Sunday, we’ve received $19,796. Thank you for your faithfulness in giving and in praying for and about this important offering to support our overseas missionaries.

Opening

Today is the final day of our sermon series The Promise. We have been exploring the themes of Advent each week leading up to Christmas. The first week, we discovered that God’s promised hope came in the form of a person. Jesus meets our deepest longings and is the hope for our present and our future. The second week, we looked at the promise of peace that was given to the lowly shepherds. There would be a new government that would come that would bring peace to the world. Then along with our choir musical, we considered the promise of one small child who would change the world. Last week, we discovered deep joy in the promise that the Savior of the world was coming. It is a joy to receive and a joy to share. Last night our focus was on the promised light of the world which came in Person of Jesus Chirst. Today we will visit the promise of love that was born into the world in the form of a baby in a manger.

Let’s stand as we are able to as we look at our focal verse this morning, the promise made in Isaiah 7:14

Isaiah 7:14 CSB

14 Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel.

PRAYER (Forest Meadow Baptist Church, Tijeras; Mike Hernandez, Pastor)

There is a very familiar depiction of this love coming into the world, and you may even have it displayed in your home today. You may have a nativity scene set up in your living room or on the mantle of your fireplace. Our nativity scene is one of the special pieces that we take special care of. It’s one of those Willow Tree sets, but with a stable that we found at Hobby Lobby one year. It is set up on top of our entertainment center, over our television. Here’s a picture. But what is a nativity? What does it mean?

The word nativity comes from the Latin word meaning “birth.” The nativity scene that we set out each year is a depiction of the birth of the God of the universe into the world as a human baby. Surrounded by His mother and earthly father, barnyard animals, shepherds, and angels (we don’t have the angel yet), all eyes of the nativity are fixed on the baby Jesus because it is all about His birth.

Melanie and I have two daughters. Each of them was what you could call a “surprise.” We didn’t think that Melanie could have children, as Maggie was born 10 years after we were married, and then Maggie turned 8 before Abbie was born. So for each little girl, we had a lot of preparation to do. We didn’t have any of the stuff needed for our first child: a crib, changing table, all of the other things that go with having a baby. And by the time Abbie came along, we had gotten rid of all of that stuff, and we had to get it all again, which was great because we got to have that “preparation” experience twice.

But what an exciting time that was for each baby girl! Imagining what the nursery would look like, picking out the colors and theme and patterns, shopping and buying and painting and building, praying for them and talking to them while they were still in the womb. Each time, there was so much anticipation for who was coming, so much preparation for each birth. This is because we prepare for the birth of the new.

1: We prepare for the birth of the new.

You see, the reason the nativity, the birth of Jesus, is so significant is not because this birth happened one day long ago, but because God’s desire for each of us is for Christ to be born within us even today, for the love of God to be revealed to the world by the way we live. So, as we finish this Christmas series, what would happen if each of us, full of expectation that God could birth something new within us as we close this season, truly began to prepare ourselves for all that God desires to do?

Our focal passage this morning is the promise given in the Old Testament that was fulfilled in the nativity scene that we are so familiar with.

Isaiah 7:14 CSB

14 Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel.

There would be a sign given to God’s people that they had not been forgotten in their sinful and broken states, but instead, when they see a virgin give birth to a child, they would see the tangible love of God coming into the world to rescue us all. The implication in this passage in Isaiah is one of anticipation and preparation. Be ready for this revelation, because it’s coming. Live your life with expectancy that God would come to us. Make space in your lives for God being with us.

In the New Testament Gospels, we have two different accounts of the nativity, this birth. Matthew and Luke each give an explanation of the way in which God came to us in the middle of our mess to be with us because of His love. In the book of Luke there is captured within the birth narrative a bit of backstory to the nativity. It begins with an angel called Gabriel, speaking to a young teenage girl named Mary.

Luke 1:26–33 CSB

26 In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man named Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And the angel came to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you.” 29 But she was deeply troubled by this statement, wondering what kind of greeting this could be. 30 Then the angel told her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 Now listen: You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.”

The message brought by the angel is that Mary would conceive a child within her womb whose name would be Jesus. Now, there is a big key to the story here. Mary is a virgin. Mary is engaged. She has not yet been married to Joseph, so this announcement must have been a difficult thing to process. What? What do you mean I am going to become pregnant? What do you mean this child, Jesus, will be the Son of the Most High, a king who will rule over all things? You see, when God is ready to do something new, it almost always is a disruption. In a world that is broken and marked by sin, the arrival of love is disruptive.

2: When God shows up, our lives are disrupted.

Mary’s life is taking a turn here that she could have never expected. As far as she knew, she was about to marry this nice Jewish man Joseph, when suddenly she has been chosen to give birth to the Savior of the world. This was a disruption, to massively understate it. Or put yourself in Joseph’s sandals: your fiancée suddenly becomes pregnant, and it’s not your baby. How do you explain this to all your friends and your family? “I know that Mary says an angel told her that this baby is not from another man, but how do I know?” For Joseph, this was a disruption. For the political power of that day, King Herod was in control of all of Israel. For this baby to come into the world and be the Son of God, the King of kings, this meant that all the old kings would have to go. This was a disruption.

This disruption comes because of the promise that God loves His people so much that He would come to dwell with them through this humble young girl.

I believe there are two choices that any person has when it comes to God’s disruption within their life: to avoid it or to embrace it. I believe that when God is trying to birth something new within us, it will feel like something confusing, something hard, something exciting, something inexplicable, something uncontrollable. When this happens . . . what will we do? Avoid it or embrace it?

Over my 33 years of walking with the Lord, there have been many times when I truly experienced the disruptive love of God in amazing ways. One such time was when God moved me to get ready for the next step: moving from youth pastor to senior pastor. I was really reluctant to commit to even the idea of the church calling me into this role. I loved being a youth pastor, and any change from that would have been an incredible disruption. But God was hammering me in my quiet times and my prayer life, even to the point of my dreams, just ask the staff and they guys who were in my accountability group at the time. And following one particularly vivid dream (which I truly believe was God clearly speaking to me), I knew. I knew the plans He had for me, and I felt the love He had for me, and I knew the direction I needed to go to experience both, even if it meant uncertainty and difficulty. It is one of those markers that I look back on when I feel that God is distant or when I wrestle with doubt in my role in the church.

Maybe this morning, as you came to church, you were wrestling with a disruption in your life. Maybe it is a new job you are not sure what to do about. Maybe it’s a loss of some kind that is painful. Maybe it is a sin that has finally found you out. Maybe it is a relationship that has hit a dead end. Maybe it is a need that you see around you that you can’t get off your mind. Disruption. This may be God’s grace and His love bringing about something new in your life.

Some of us this morning have spent years avoiding a disruption that God has been trying to use within our lives to birth something new. My prayer today would be that all across this room there would be people who would stop avoiding the disruptions that God can use to help us experience Him and start embracing the work that God wants to do within us through His great love.

Like Mary and Joseph in this story, God is wanting to do something through our lives that will change the world. But we have to choose how we will respond.

Look how Mary responds.

Luke 1:34–37 CSB

34 Mary asked the angel, “How can this be, since I have not had sexual relations with a man?” 35 The angel replied to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 And consider your relative Elizabeth—even she has conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called childless. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Mary asks a fair question: “How will this be?” She was a virgin. There is no natural way that God could bring about what has been promised. You see, within her mind there can be no new birth because it does not seem humanly possible. She is right; it is not humanly possible. This is a work of God. Mary had new-birth excuses.

3: We all have new-birth excuses.

We all have reasons why God cannot do a new work with us. I had my own when God was prompting me to put in my willingness to be senior pastor. I want to speak to those excuses for a moment. I have heard them over and over from people within the church. I have heard people say, “There is no way God can save my marriage; it’s too far gone.” I’ve heard people say, “There is no way God could love me; I have made too many mistakes.” I have heard, “I will never see the relationship with my son or daughter restored; there has been too much damage done.” I have heard, “I will never be able to get on top of my bills; I am destined to be in debt the rest of my life.” I have heard, “I will never be able to break this addiction I have; the temptation is too strong.” These are all excuses for why we can’t experience new birth. Like Mary, we point out how, from a human perspective at least, it does not make sense for God to be able to do a work in and through us. But look how the angel responded to her excuse.

The angel says, “The Holy Spirit will come on you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” Essentially, he was saying, “You see, Mary, what is impossible with man is possible with God.” This is not a work of mere men; this is a work of God. All of our excuses are correct and valid about why this Christmas should not be a fresh start and a new birth. In and of ourselves, it is impossible, but through the love of God, expressed in His miraculous birth, anything that God decides to do is possible.

The nativity, this birth, changed the world two thousand years ago. This birth is still changing the world today because the same Spirit of God that came upon Mary is the same Most High that can overshadow us today. God wants to birth something new within you today, and it is not about your ability, your effort, your qualifications, your gender, your track record, or your status. It is simply about seeing that whatever disruption God has allowed or brought into your life is an act of love and is something to be embraced rather than avoided.

I think we need to pay attention to Mary’s response to the fulfilled promise.

Luke 1:38 CSB

38 “See, I am the Lord’s servant,” said Mary. “May it happen to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.

Mary’s response is surrender. She opens herself up to whatever God wants to do within her life. All the questions are not answered yet. There is plenty yet to be revealed, but she is willing and she rests in God’s love for her and God’s love for the world. She says, “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Mary’s surrender is an act of faith in what God has declared.

This is a wonderful picture of what it looks like to surrender to the message of the Gospel. When God reveals that He created us and loves us, but that our sin separates us from Him because He’s holy and we’re not, we find that there’s nothing we can do to fix the problem. The only one who can is God Himself. And that’s exactly what He did in Christ—Jesus died to pay the price that we owe for our sins, as the wrath of God was poured out on His perfect Son on the cross. God has declared that our sins deserve death, and we can surrender in faith, trusting in what Jesus has already done to save us, and giving up our lives to Him as Lord, just as Mary did when she said, “I am the Lord’s servant.”

It’s either that, or we can choose to pay that debt that we owe because of our sins ourselves, receiving death. But this kind of death means being eternally separated from God… from the One who Scripture declares defines love because He is love. You might think that you’re living for yourself if you reject God, but all you’re really doing is walking in death. Your excuses for why you might want to reject the Gospel will all amount to nothing in the end: no excuse will be good enough. Through Christ, and only through Christ, can we experience the true love of God in its purest form, and only through Christ can we begin to live the life that we were meant to live from the beginning.

4: When we submit to God, His promises can be fulfilled in and through us.

This isn’t to say that God needs us. He is complete and doesn’t need us. This is to say that God can fulfill His promises and purposes in whatever way He sees fit. He often desires to use those who belong to Him to do so, like Mary.

What if this were the kind of posture we committed to this Christmas and for the coming year? How would our lives be different? Our submission to God has everything to do with what we perceive to be our greatest need.

Author and Pastor, Max Lucado said, “If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator; if our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist; if our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist; if our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer; but our greatest need was forgiveness, so God sent us a Savior.”

The world’s greatest need was the love and grace of God. So, Mary was willing to take on the disruption that giving birth to the Savior of the world would require. Here is another question: If this is the posture we choose to take this Christmas, how might God use us to birth something new in someone else’s life?

I like this because the message of this birth is not intended to simply change Mary and Joseph’s life. This message of a baby named Jesus is also meant to usher in a new kingdom that is the kingdom of heaven. This kingdom does not look like the kingdom we have grown accustomed to. This kingdom is dedicated to turning the world on its head and healing the broken and rescuing the lost. Love is becoming the norm in this kingdom, and it becomes a reality when we receive the love of God for us and offer the love of God to others.

I believe that the new work that God could do within our lives could be good news for someone else. Perhaps following this Advent season, we might look for opportunities to first reach out and allow the birth of Jesus to move us to be a part of new birth within our neighborhoods. Consider the ways you could do something new to show the love of God to others. Maybe it’s as simple as starting to actively pray for your neighbors. You can get connected with our neighborhood prayer ministry called Bless Every Home to help you in this. Maybe it’s deciding to open your doors to get to know and love your neighbors, engaging them over meals or taking them a small gift, developing new relationships. Maybe it is beginning new family traditions, non-Christmas related ones even, that put Jesus first.

This is what happens to us when we believe the good news of Jesus’s birth as more than just a historical fact, but also as a promise that affects our present. Our lives can be changed, and in so doing we can have an eternal impact on the lives of those around us.

Closing

As we close this year’s Advent series on this beautiful Christmas morning, my prayer for Eastern Hills is that we have been impacted by the hope, peace, joy, and love that God has shown through that one small child, Jesus Christ, the light of the world, born in a manger, but who grew up and died on a cross so that we could be forgiven, and rising from the grave so that we could live eternally with Him. And I pray that that impact will move us to not simply celebrate that miraculously born, perfectly living, sacrificially dying, and powerfully rising Savior, but to represent Him to a world who are lost and devoid of true hope, peace, joy, and love.

So, may we be people who, like Mary, are eager to say, “May your word to me be fulfilled.” You do whatever you want to do in me, God!

This morning, I believe the Spirit of God is at work. If you have never trusted in Christ as Lord and Savior, then I believe that God is calling to you right now by His Spirit to surrender. Stop making excuses or clinging to reasons for not trusting Christ, and submit to His love. If this is you, please come and let us know.

If you believe that Eastern Hills is a church family where you can engage and grow, and you’d like to talk about joining this church family through formal membership, please come and let us know that as well.

This is also a time for you to pray if you would like to. You can pray at the steps or where you are in the pew, or if you would like for one of us to pray with you, you can come and share your prayer need with us.

Finally, this time of invitation is a good time to give online or through the church app if you’d like to do so. If you’d rather give in person this morning, you can do so using the plates by the doors as we exit the sanctuary.

PRAYER

Closing Remarks

No church activities tonight or Wednesday night.

Church office closed until Thursday due to carpet cleaning

Bible reading plan 1 Chr 23

Instructions for guests

Benediction

In benediction this morning, I leave you with the following blessing:

“May you be filled with the wonder of Mary, the obedience of Joseph, the joy of the angels, the eagerness of the shepherds, the determination of the magi, and the peace of Christ this Christmas. May Almighty God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, bless you this Christmas Day.”