O Come, All You Unfaithful

Introduction

Living in a broken world, we know what it is like for people to let us down. And if we’re honest with ourselves for any amount of time, we can all remember a time or two that we’ve let another person down. Bill McCartney became the football coach for the University of Colorado in 1982 and he made a promise: God comes first, family comes second, football comes third. Football players know this expression: Faith, Family, Football. McCartney goes on to say that he didn’t keep that promise for long, though. This job excited him and it also challenged him. It kept him up late into the night as the task at hand was immense - to lead this football program from chaos to championship caliber. He said that the more that his team won, the more he kept losing focus of his priorities. Eventually in 1990 Colorado won the national championship and thousands of people said that he had arrived and reached the top of the ladder of success. But deep down, he confesses, there was an emptiness. He had accomplished everything a head coach could want - a national championship - but he knew he was missing something. He was so busy pursuing his career goals that he realized that for nearly 9 years he had been missing out on the Spirit-filled life that God had intended for him. He had been unfaithful to that promise to keep God first.

Now, it’s easy to point the finger at Coach McCartney or sports in general and say that he dropped the ball so to speak because of this or that, and that’s absolutely true as he acknowledges that he got too consumed and busy with his career than his walk with the Lord. But if we’re being honest, we’ve all been Coach McCartney. Sure, I doubt any of us have won a national championship as a college football coach, but we’ve all been guilty of saying that God comes first and eventually we look at our priority list and He’s a distant 3rd, often at best. We’re not quite as faithful as we think we are, and we’re definitely not as faithful as we sing about at Christmas time. A couple of years ago, Sovereign Grace Music came out with the song O Come, All You Unfaithful based on the testimony from a mother who was at church and the church was singing the familiar tune, O Come, All Ye Faithful. But she couldn’t sing the song. The more she reflected on her life that Christmas season, the more she was overwhelmed and struggling. Between stressful finances, miscarrying twins, and battling relational bitterness and jealousy, she was in a rough spot. As the lyrics of the song began, “O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant” she shared how she felt “Unfaithful, a joy that has dwindled, and and a triumphant failure” - any of us ever felt those ways? We’ve been there.

Are only the faithful, joyful, and triumphant welcome to come and celebrate at Christmas time? If so, there would be no celebration. She penned the lyrics to this song and it shares this,

“O come, all you unfaithful

Come, weak and unstable

Come, know you are not alone…

Come Though you have nothing

Come He is the offering

Come, see what Your God has done”

This song pulls at the strings of our heart because it’s our song. We are unfaithful and left to our own doing, we have no hope. But at Christmas we celebrate that God sent His Son to be the faithful One. God sent His Son to give us joy. God sent His Son so that we could be triumphant, not because of our own doing, but because of His work in our place. This morning, as we reflect on the work of Jesus in Psalm 24 and Galatians 4, if you are here and you feel like a colossal, unfaithful person, know that you’re not alone. Christ has come and in Christ, there is hope.

Psalm 24 CSB

A psalm of David. 1 The earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants, belong to the Lord; 2 for he laid its foundation on the seas and established it on the rivers. 3 Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? 4 The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not appealed to what is false, and who has not sworn deceitfully. 5 He will receive blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. 6 Such is the generation of those who inquire of him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah 7 Lift up your heads, you gates! Rise up, ancient doors! Then the King of glory will come in. 8 Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle. 9 Lift up your heads, you gates! Rise up, ancient doors! Then the King of glory will come in. 10 Who is he, this King of glory? The Lord of Armies, he is the King of glory. Selah

Our Problem: We Can’t Approach God (Psalm 24:1-4)

In life we know that we have faced and will continue to face problems of all types of shapes and sizes. Some of our problems are people problems and we know that people can drive us a little crazy, but we also pause and remember that we also sometimes drive other people a little crazy. We face people problems. We also face scheduling problems. There are times where we have so much to get done that it can feel impossible to get everything that needs to get done, done. This past week might have felt that way for you with Christmas being just a day away, or maybe you’re still in this mode trying to think of all the things still incomplete on your “to-do” list! We face health problems, we face communication problem, we face technological problems, we face money problems, we face so many problems that it can seem as though the problems will never stop. In a fallen world, this is just the way that things are. But what is our greatest problem? You might be here with quite a long list of them, or you might be here with a relatively short list. Regardless, what is at the top of the list? Ephesians 2 tells us that we’re enemies of God and dead in our sins and trespasses. Wouldn’t you agree that this is a serious problem? Psalm 24 tells us that everything belongs to the Lord because He made all things - and the Bible tells us our greatest problem is that our sin separates us from God. This isn’t the best news to hear, but maybe you hear this and you’re convicted by its truth and you desire to change your reality. Maybe you think that you can solve this problem. If you’re separated from something, you know that you need to reconnect to that thing. Some people hear that they are separated from God because of their sin and their immediate reaction is to ask what they need to do in order to fix this problem - men this is what we desire to do, right? We are problem solvers, not necessarily problem sympathizers. We learn this in marriage - your wife tells you that there’s a conflict and your mind immediately snaps to solve the problem and you offer a solution. Men, if you’ve been there you know the danger in offering a solution at times, don’t you? We try to solve problems, it’s how we’re wired. Whenever we hear that there’s a problem between ourselves and God we try to solve that problem and many people have offered solutions:

Work harder

Come to church more

Do more nice things

Be a good person

The list goes on! People genuinely believe that they can solve this problem - they think that if the separation between themselves and God were a mountain, that they can scale that mountain by trying really really hard. What does Psalm 24 tell us about this mountain? Who can climb up it and “reach” the Lord? We must have 4 things

Clean hands

A Pure heart

Free from idolatry

Free from lies

That’s it, just 4 things! What’s the problem? We don’t possess these things. Our self-help society is up a creek without a paddle, how can we possibly have clean hands? Maybe you’re thinking by going and washing them for 30 seconds or by going and doing something nice for others or by coming to church. The literal idea here is not of cleansing something previously dirty but of being completely innocent - having innocent hands that are free from the stain of sin. How can we have this standing? By second having a pure heart. While our world might say that we have a pure heart, the Bible tells us the exact opposite. Jer 17:9

Jeremiah 17:9 CSB

9 The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?

This is our problem. We are separated from God with no way to reach Him through our actions and works. So what did God do? He reached down. He sent His Son. Jesus gives us access to God that is not ours through merit, but through mercy. In the Old Testament, God’s people were reminded of their shortcomings year after year with the sacrificial system that they were apart of. Because of your sin you can’t come in. Because of your sin you are separated from God. Just as we celebrate at Christmas that light breaks through the darkness when Jesus was born, we continue to celebrate this truth of Psalm 24 as Jesus, the Son of God, with clean hands and a pure heart, came to solve this problem that we all were facing. Not just a communication problem. Not just a relationship problem. Not just a health problem. But a separation problem due to our sin.

How does this baby solve this problem? Let’s turn to Galatians 4 and see what exactly God’s plan was in sending Jesus to the earth 2000 years ago

Galatians 4:4–7 CSB

4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir.

God’s Provision: Adopt Sinners Into His Family (Galatians 4:4-7)

When the time came to completion, God sent His Son. Can we just marinate on that for a minute. Think of what that verse in Galatians 4 is telling us. When the time came to completion. Y’all know that your pastor loves some chocolate chip cookies and tomorrow we’re leaving to make the trip to Ozark to spend the Christmas week with family and I’m looking forward to that week in more ways than one, but one of the things that I’m excited about is getting to eat Grandma’s chocolate chip cookies - does anyone else remember that for whatever reason, cookies always taste best from Grandma? As a kid, I remember being at the farm and hearing the timer go off on the oven and racing up the stairs because I knew what that noise meant: The time had come to completion, it was time to eat some cookies! Before that timer went off, though, you have to wait. Thankfully for cookies you don’t have to wait terribly long, but you still have to wait. Think about some of the things that we wait for in life. We wait months and months for Christmas Day to get here. We wait years until we can have our drivers license or until we pay our house off. We wait many years until we have a family or until we can finally retire from our job. What eventually happens, though? Christmas comes. We get the drivers license. We retire. The time comes to completion and it is so sweet whenever it does, especially whenever you’ve waited a long time for that to happen. Usually, the longer that you wait, the more you rejoice when the waiting ends.

Consider God’s people in the Old Testament. Sin enters the world and we know that sin leads to death, yet God made a promise to send a sin slaying, death defeating Savior. Genesis 3:15 is the first time this promise shows up and maybe we expect it to be fulfilled soon and very soon because that’s our timeline. But our timeline doesn’t always line up with God’s. See, God is perfect. At Christmas, we remember that God has a perfect plan and His plan includes a perfect timeline. Thousands of years after Genesis 3:15, the people of God were still waiting for God to come through. Kings came and went. Prophets were killed. Enemies came in and led the people into exile. God was silent for over 400 years! The people wander: God have you forgotten? Have you forgotten our problem? Have you forgotten Your promise? What does Zechariah say in Luke 1? God remembered. This isn’t to say that He forgot, but after all of this waiting, God remembered His people. Light pierced through the darkness when the time came to completion. When all looked helpless and hopeless - God determined to act by sending His Son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law.

Jesus couldn’t be born of man because in Adam, we are all born sinners. He is our representative head. Hence, the virgin birth. This doesn’t mean that Mary was sinless - there’s nothing in Scripture that supports that, in fact, Scripture teaches the opposite that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The Roman Catholic Church will try to sell you the lie that they don’t worship Mary, but try telling them that Mary had other children in addition to Jesus or that she sinned and they will treat you like Martin Luther. God took a virgin teenager and she was the vessel that carried the Son of God at the appropriate time in order to redeem people under the law. The birth of Jesus Christ truly changes everything in the history of humanity and the birth of Jesus Christ still changes lives to this day as God sent Him in order to save us and adopt us into His forever family.

Before Christ, Galatians tells us that we were slaves to sin. We were on the outside looking in. We had no hope. Ephesians 2 language, we were children under wrath walking in darkness and dead in our sins. This is as bad as it gets! So how does Jesus save? He doesn’t come to Bethlehem to proclaim, “You’d better be faithful and straight up your act so that then and only then you’ll be good enough to be saved.” What does He say in Mark’s Gospel?

Mark 1:15 CSB

15 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Repent! What does this imply? The people are not faithful. They are living in sin. They are separated from God. This is why Jesus had to come, because we’re not faithful by ourselves. Because we’re not triumphant in the fight against sin. This is why Jesus came. To adopt sinners like you and me into the family of God and give us the title of Son. This picture of adoption is found in 4 New Testament passages, Romans 8 which people are good with, Romans 9, which no one touches, Ephesians 1 which no one touches, and here in Galatians 4 which most people are cool with. What is this picture Paul is giving us sporadically in the New Testament? Jesus comes to Bethlehem with a mission, again this was God’s plan. To seek and save the lost. To be the light of the world that allows others to walk in light rather than in darkness. The only way Jesus could do this was by removing the separation between ourselves and God. He had to remove that penalty that we owed as those under the law. He had to pay that price in full. As He does this, He gives His followers full rights as Sons. This is adoption. One of the most painful things that you can say to someone who has adopted is this, “Do you wish you had real kids?” Or, “Do you love your adopted child as much as your real ones?” Contextually, as Paul is writing this in the Roman world, adoption was similar to ours today but also slightly different. There was no distinction between a biological child and an adopted child. In fact, in the Roman world it was often thought of as more honorable to be an adopted child than a biological one because the adopted child was chosen by the Father whereas the father had no choice with the biological one. The adopted child had a past, possibly he was even a slave, but because of this legal change of status, he was now a son of his new father. He had a financial and legal privilege and inheritance awaiting him. He had a new status. He had a new hope. This was Jesus’ purpose in coming to Bethlehem, as CS Lewis worded it years ago, “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.” This is adoption language!

Understand the magnitude of what Jesus coming to this earth does: Not only does Jesus live a perfect life and release us from the punishment we owed due to our sin… Jesus gives us His standing as a Son. In other words, because of Jesus, God not only pardons us from death row in the courtroom, but He welcomes us into His living room as our new Father as if WE deserved to be there. This is the privilege of sonship. We are adopted as Sons and sealed by His Spirit!

DA Carson is a hero of mine and he shared this Christmas illustration in regards to the first passover in Egypt. Picture two Jews in Egypt, Smith and Brown, they’re discussing what is going to happen that night as the Angel of Death is coming. Smith asks, “Are you nervous about tonight?” Brown shrugs and says, “God told us what to do through Moses, we don’t have to be nervous! Have you sacrificed the lamb and placed its blood on your doorpost? Are you ready to eat this passover meal with your family? Have you done what God said?” Smith replied, “Of course I’ve done all of that! But, I’m still nervous. Have you watched all that God has done in recent days? Flies, Frogs, Blood in the Nile. These are strange times! You have 3 sons, I just have 1 son that I love dearly. The Angel of Death is coming - I know what God has said, I put the blood on the doorpost, but I’ll be glad when this night is over.” Brown says, “No way, bring it on! I’m ready for tonight - I’m fully confident in God!” That night, the Angel of Death came. Did Smith or Brown lose their firstborn son? _ Neither of them did! Because death didn’t pass over them on the ground of the intensity of their faith… The angel passed over based on the ground of the blood on their doorpost. The blood spoke then, and the blood of Jesus speaks even louder than the blood of that little lamb. You might be like me and you wonder aloud at times to God, Lord how can you love me when I’ve been a Christian for decades and I still stumble and do absolutely silly sinful things?

Enter the lyrics to a beloved hymn: I need no other argument, I need no other plea, it is enough that Jesus died, and that He died for me!

The ground of our assurance and our adoption is not in the intensity of our faith - but the object of our faith. Unfaithful might be your experience today - Christian. Unfaithful might be your experience today apart from Christ, non-Christian. But through Jesus, unfaithful is no longer your identity.

We don’t deserve this. Our adoption is not due to our faithfulness. It’s not due to our triumphance. It’s not due to our joyfulness. It’s due to the perfection of Jesus and His faithfulness to do what we never could. That baby born in Bethlehem still changes lives as God provides salvation to sinners living in a sin-filled world. He is still faithful, even when we are faithless. In fact, as AW Pink once shared

For God to be unfaithful would be to act contrary to His nature, which is impossible.

Arthur Walkington Pink

This is our hope, especially during the Christmas season. We celebrate that God came through and did what He promised to do. He didn’t just send a teacher, He didn’t just send a counselor, He didn’t just send a leader. He sent His Son.

Our Proclamation: Jesus Saves! (Psalm 24:7-10)

If this is your story, if you are an adopted child of the King through the work of Jesus Christ on Calvary, then there’s just one thing to do this Christmas Season, and in every season that follows: Give Thanks to our God for what He has done. We were walking in darkness, but God. He sent His Son. In Bethlehem, known as the House of Bread, the Son of God was born and placed in a manger. Do you know what a manger is and what it was used for? The manger 2000 years ago is not a wooden structure like we depict today, it was made of stone. It was sturdy and valuable and able to protect what was inside of it. Some say that the manger was used to protect spotless lambs and keep them safe for sacrifices as a spotless lamb was required for such a sacrifice. Do you see a connection there to Jesus Christ? The spotless lamb of God, born into this world in order to become the sacrifice for sinners like you and I? That might or might not be a genuine connection, as the Biblical account doesn’t tell us that shepherds kept their spotless sheep in mangers and there are conflicting accounts of this in history. But what do we see in the text? Into this house of bread, the bread of life was born as Jesus tells us in John 6:35

John 6:35 CSB

35 “I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again.

Into this manger, where animals would eat and drink, the bread of life was placed so that we would be satisfied and never thirst again. Who were the first people to be told of this news? Shepherds who were keeping watch over their flock of sheep. Shepherds who were willing to give up their life for their sheep. Shepherds who didn’t have much by way of earthly possessions. Shepherds who were disrespected and looked down upon. These shepherds in Bethlehem were the ones to welcome the lamb of God into this world. These shepherds were the first ones to see the Good Shepherd who came to lay down His life for His sheep and save His people from their sins. What did the shepherds do after they met Jesus? Luke 2:20

Luke 2:20 CSB

20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had seen and heard, which were just as they had been told.

They saw Jesus, and Jesus changed them. They left glorifying God and sharing all that they had seen and heard. This baby boy was born in Bethlehem… but who is He? Psalm 24 - He is the King of Glory. The Lord of Armies. The Lord Strong and Mighty. This is the Christ - the Son of God - born as a baby to seek and save lost sheep. We can’t miss this:

At the birth of Jesus, the message is “Come and See”

After His birth, the message is “Go and Tell”

Consider, though. This isn’t the only time we see this flow show up in Scripture. We see the shepherds are told by the angels to go and see the baby in the manger, sure enough they go and they see Jesus. But they leave and they must tell others of what God has done. Understand this reality, church, when you meet Jesus, you are forced to tell others about Him. This is true at His birth, and it’s also true at His second birth or as we know it, resurrection

We read of Mary telling the disciples that Jesus is not in the tomb. What happens? Peter and John race and as John eloquently and humbly puts it, the “other” disciple outran Peter to the tomb. Come and See the empty tomb and empty it was. What did they do after Jesus appeared to them? They went out and they spent the rest of their lives telling others of the truth: This Jesus, born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago truly is the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of Sinners, the Slayer of the Serpent, the Son of God and the Son of Man. At Christmas we come and see and then we MUST go and tell others that Jesus Christ Saves Sinners.

In 2024, the message will be “Come and See”

In 2024, the message will be “Go and Tell”

That in the midst of the cold, darkness, emptiness, and gloom of winter, here we celebrate Christmas. We celebrate warmth, light, fulfillment, and joy unlike anything else on this planet. We celebrate this today - though the days are dark, on Christmas Eve they begin to get brighter. Whether we know it or not, summer is coming again. Whether our world knows it or not, Jesus is coming again. He is eternally faithful… Even when you and I are everything but. This is what we celebrate at Christmas. Christ has come. He will come again. And until He does, He gives us peace with God vertically and peace with our new adoptive brothers and sisters horizontally. We couldn’t earn this peace and we couldn’t achieve it ourselves. We aren’t faithful. We aren’t perfect. We aren’t triumphant. But He is!

Because of Jesus, our brokenness is welcome at the foot of the cross and through Jesus, we can now approach our Father as adopted children - redeemed through His sacrifice in our place on the cross. Do you know this Jesus? Have you experienced His peace? You don’t have to become faithful first before coming to Jesus - if that were the case, no one could come at all. The message of Christmas is to come and see. He is faithful. He is good. He changes us. He saves us.

So come, though you have nothing Come, He is the offering Come, see what your God has done