Unexpected Jesus
Notes
Transcript
After a year of college I did not expect my grandma wold whoop me in Scrabble
I did not expect the guy at camp to to be a Dr. of Neuroscience
While doing prison ministry in Jefferson City, MO I did not expect that prisoners would be teaching me about God’s grace.
I did not expect the “thug” on the bus to pull out his bible and start to read it
So what do you think the expectations of Jesus are? Do you have expectation? Is Jesus all expected? More?
Galatians 4:4–7 (NIV)
But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
1. When the time had fully come
1. When the time had fully come
-Pax Romana + common language + favorable means of travel = exceptional timing for the gospel-It is sufficient to say with
-Other may look for a specific time line. Like Daniel 9:24
“Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place.
and say that the proper amount of time has passed.
Calvin that “the time which had been ordained by the providence of God was seasonable and fit.… Therefore the right time for the Son of God to be revealed to the world was for God alone to judge and determine.”
This was not coincidence. There are many OT prophecies that point to something very intentional.
Consider Hebrews 10:7
Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, my God.’ ”
With out a doubt though at just the right time...
2. “God sent his son”
2. “God sent his son”
and this may be the most powerful summery of the gospel message.
The 1st century church believed this truth. We know from various scriptures that Jesus is the son of God. Jesus said it, the apostles said and the church believed it. In fact..
Paul quoted from a creedal statement or hymn of the 1st century church when he wrote Col1:15-17
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Our only conclusion to the matter is that Jesus is the divine Son of God sent form heaven.
Galatians (2) The Radical Change: From Slavery to Sonship (4:1–7)
God sent his Son not just from Galilee to Jerusalem, nor just from the manger to the cross, but all the way from heaven to earth. The full implications of this text can hardly be grasped in human language. In sending Jesus, God did not send a substitute or a surrogate. He came himself.
3. Born of a woman, born under the law
3. Born of a woman, born under the law
-First Paul is affirming the human nature of Jesus. Fully God and fully man.
“Mortals, born of woman, are of few days and full of trouble.
-Jesus experienced what it’s like to be human. He did not sin but he experienced hardships, trials and temptations.
-I think we can assert that Paul also knew that this woman was the virgin Mary, he was after all the travel companion of Luke.
-Being born under the law reminds us that he was a Jewish male and so was obligated to all the Jewish rituals that were associated with being so.
Galatians (2) The Radical Change: From Slavery to Sonship (4:1–7)
He grew up in a Jewish home reading the Torah, praying to his Heavenly Father, attending synagogue, faithfully fulfilling, as no one before or after him has ever done, all of the precepts and demands of the law.
However As F. F. Bruce has noted, while Jesus was “under the law,” he was nevertheless not under sin (cf. 2 Cor 5:21). Thus “he himself had no need of slave-attendant, guardian or steward, and he came to bring his people to the point where they too could dispense with their services.”
4. In order that he might redeem
4. In order that he might redeem
In order that we might receive adoption
In order that we might receive adoption
What is Redemption? It literally means buy back, or pay a ransom
Paul states that before Christ there was only the law. Sometimes even referred to as the curse of the law.
Galatians (2) The Radical Change: From Slavery to Sonship (4:1–7)
If redemption implies a basically negative background—we are redeemed from the curse of the law, from the slave market of sin, from the clutches of the hostile elemental spirits—Paul went on to show the positive purpose for Christ’s sacrificial suffering and death. The Son of God was born of woman and put under the law in order to redeem us from the law so that we might receive “the full rights of sons.”
And that is his next observation, we are adopted and now called children of God.
This adoption comes with all the benefits of being a son.
-We are recipients of the Spirit
-The right to call God “abba Father”
-The curse of slavery is gone
-In Christ we are called co-heirs
To night I’m going to light the final candle on our Advent Wreath. It is the Christ candle. Hope, Peace, Joy and Love are all present and possible because of Christ.
Set up Communion
Set up Communion
Christ is at the center of all things. I’ve never really been a fan of the saying at Christmas “Jesus is the reason for the season because Jesus is the reason period.
Jesus is certainly at the center of this moment now, the moment that we remember why he was born. He was born to give his life as a ransom for many.
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.
Instructions for taking communion
-Light candles
-Circle the sanctuary
-Sing 2 verses of Silent Night.
We know that Jesus will return and when he does we can sing with saints
JOY TO THE WORLD 1 verse.