God Has Truly Come in Christ

Advent 2 – God has truly come to us in Jesus Hebrews 1:1–3 (NIV84) 1 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. Hebrews 2:1–4 (NIV84) 1 We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2 For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, 3 how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4 God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. In about 3 weeks we’re going to celebrate Christmas. Are you looking forward to Christmas? Today is the second Advent Sunday of 2018. Advent is a version of the Latin word that means “coming”. Advent is a time of eager waiting and preparation to honour and observe Jesus’ first coming into our world as well as preparing ourselves for His return with His second coming. During Advent we prepare ourselves for the real meaning of Christmas. What are you looking forward to, though? I’d like to suggest to you that what we should look forward to is to understand the message about Jesus. We call this message about Jesus the Gospel. Technically the Gospel is the revelation of good news of God about God meeting mankind. However, in the Gospels, [Matthew, Mark, Luke and John] that good news about God is the good news that God has come to us in Jesus Christ. In our Scripture reading from Hebrews the author tells us that God revealed Himself to us by speaking through his Son who is His exact representation. And then the author says that we should “pay more careful attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” Why is that so important? All over the world a few billion people are going to participate is some form of Christmas celebration. For most of them, however, it will say nothing about Jesus. Friends, we live in a world where many people don’t know God, don’t believe in God, don’t have a relationship with God and don’t worship God. Now, there are some people who would like to argue that this is normal and that it always was like this. During our Advent preparations I would like to challenge the veracity of this argument. I’d like to suggest to you that the Bible and science are actually united in telling us that this argument is severely flawed! From Genesis onwards Scripture reveals to us that God created everything we know – the heavens and the earth and all that lives in it or on it. God also created us – mankind. And Scripture tells us that God genuinely desired a serious relationship with mankind. Scripture also tells us that God made Himself known to all generations of mankind from the time when He spoke to our first parents through original and direct revelation as we find in the beginning of Genesis. He came to them. He walked with them and He talked to them, and He told them that they belong to Him. Even after their rebellion He still talked to them. This process of making Himself known directly continued for some time because we know that after Adam and Eve’s rebellion people [Enoch and Noah] still ‘walked with God’ (Genesis 5:22; 6:9) and “talked with Him” like Cain, for instance, did (Genesis 4:6–15). But as time passed by and people became more and more corrupt and decided to go their own way this direct contact seemed to become less and less. However, the Bible also tells us that God, although God allowed people to go their own way, has never left Himself in any age or place without a witness. This is exactly what Paul so clearly argued according to Acts 14:16–17: “In the past, he let all nations go their own way. 17 Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” This is the main reason why Paul could say what he did in Romans 1:20 (NIV84) “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” This is the testimony of Scripture. This is part of our Advent preparation. We acknowledge that we too are not left without testimony. The whole of creation witness that God is real. Now, I said to that Scripture and Science agree regarding this matter. So, what does science say? Religious and cultural anthropology – the science that study the history of man, his culture and faith – show that the oldest religious traditions are the nearest to biblical belief. Anthropologists tell us that their research reveal that there are some trace or tradition of knowledge of the true God among all primitive peoples. Every known kind of primitive society, the Inca’s of the Americas, The Pygmies of Africa, the Aboriginals of Australia reveal knowledge of the existence of the ‘highest God’ in their spiritual customs. No known societies are without it. Mankind is one biological family – we all are the progenies of Adam and Eve. And no one is left without testimony of God. He has shown kindness by giving rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides with plenty of food and fills hearts with joy. Geoff Bullock reminds us that the heavens shall declare the glory of His name; that all creation bows at the coming of the King. Every eye shall see, every heart will know; every knee shall bow, every tongue confesses: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord; See the coming of the King, holy is the Lord During this Advent I would like to remind you that this is why certain traditions are passed down us all of mankind. Scripture and science remind us that God doesn’t leave us without testimony about Himself. Perhaps most of the best ideas people have about God have come to us in this manner. Monotheism – the belief that there is only one God – is a worldwide belief because it is one of these traditions passed down to the whole biological family of Adam and Eve. We find it everywhere. Why do we find it everywhere? Because it is real – because it is true – because it is the way it really happened. I believe it has to do with the inheritance that all these cultures as part of that one family have that stems from the beginning of creation. Fancy that! However, today we live in new age of apostacy – an age of renewed rejection of God and religion. What is new in people’s argument today is that they want to argue that science proof that God isn’t real. I know people who believe this. But what fascinates me personally about this argument, is that not even the harshest atheist scholar will argue that they have beyond any doubt proof that God doesn’t exist. They admit that their unbelief is coloured by their personal bias and preference! In other words: “they choose not to believe”! They choose to ignore the testimony of the universe. They choose to ignore the testimony of cultural anthropology. Again, friends, I’d like to remind you this Advent that the fact that people reject God, or stop to believe in His existence, doesn’t mean that He never existed or that He stopped to exist, that He never revealed Himself to mankind or that He desire to have a relationship with all people, or that He came to mankind like Scripture reveals, or that Jesus came once and are coming again. Far from it! All that it reveals is that mankind chooses to believe in or deny God. It also implies that mankind will be held accountable for that choice. This is why I said a moment ago that all people must deal with Paul’s clear message about apostasy from God’s revelation. I, once again, refer you to (Romans 1:18–32). And you and I need to remember that it is into this alien world, that reject us because we are different from them, that God has come to us in Jesus too, showing Himself to be perfectly just and perfectly merciful when He accept those who believe in Him as His children, and reject those who reject Him. Friend, during our Advent preparation I would like to remind you that God has come to us just once or twice, but repeatedly. Every time we hear his Word, he comes to us again, offering us his grace and showing us his love. Every time we experience the wonders of creation He witnesses again. Some people argue that there is no “evidence” that God walks and talks with people today the way He did with Adam and Eve. But I would like to argue that even though it might seem as if: we live under a silent heaven, walking wholly by ‘faith and not by sight’, that there are more than what the naked eye can observe. I would like to argue that Scripture tells us that God continue to reveal Himself in special divine and miraculous works. I would like to suggest to you that we mostly do not even know if and when some extraordinary event falls in the category of God’s ordinary working, for instance in the laws of nature or His special miracles. Someone who’s getting it though, is Louie Giglio. Do yourself a favour and Google his Indescribable. I think Chris Tomlin, who wrote How great is our God, is getting it. I think Matt Redman who wrote 10,000 reasons get it too. When you have the time listen to it on YouTube. You and I should get it too. Friends, we truly might not know the minute detail about how God works in either creation or providence, as He reminded Job in (chapters 38, 39); we might not know much about the detail how God performs miracles, but we know that He does. This is what we acknowledge this Advent. When we read about Moses and events before the Exodus, we do not know whether the first plagues of Egypt came of natural causes or not; but we know, however, that their timing certainly did not. Scripture tests us that God’s power operated in either case for His special reasons. One of those reasons was to teach Pharaoh and all the nations who heard the report of them that God is real. Pharaoh had said, ‘Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice’ (Exodus 5:2). But the LORD said, ‘I will … multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt … The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt’ (Exodus 7:3–5, also verse 17). God purposed that Pharaoh and all of his people would learn some things about the LORD God of the Hebrews. Moses said to the Egyptian king during one of the plagues, ‘I will stretch out my hands to the LORD. The thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the LORD’s’ (Exodus 9:29). It was not only the Egyptians who had to learn about God. Through those events the people of God of that generation and all later generations were to be taught, as we now are being taught now, about God: ‘Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his officials, that I may show these miraculous signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your children and of your grandchildren how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs [miracles] I have done among them, so that you may know that I am the LORD’ (Exodus 10:1–2). From these texts and others, we learn or have confirmed several things about God. Israel discovered that their God never fails to keep a promise. They came to understand, as David, that the ‘the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether’ (Psalm 19:9). This morning you and I may still be sure that God reigns. Yes, God speaks to us through nature – through the raindrops and the dew; through hail storms, thunder claps and lightning flashes; through bushfires, droughts, tsunamis, and floods; through bright blue skies, windless summer days, sunrises and sunsets; and through butterflies, bees, the wild beasts that walk on earth and through wild flowers, century old trees and orchids. For He created them all. And God speaks to us through all the true discoveries of science. For they too are subjected to His might and power. But as Christian we know that God is speaking to us today through the proclamation of His Word. The Bible claims to be not one but a series of messages about God, beginning with the earliest prophetic deliverances of the Old Testament through the last of Jesus’ apostolic witnesses. This is the testimony of the author of Hebrews. We listened to 2 snippets of this testimony as our Scripture reading for today. It reminds us that Jesus was God’s agent in creating the world, just like Paul reminded the believers in Colossae: “For by Him all things were created” (Colossians 1:16). As followers of Jesus Christ, we may agree to this truth while we deny it in practice. We may believe that Jesus knows and controls the laws of heaven (relating to salvation and spiritual growth), but we may act each day as though our financial, family, business or medical problems are beyond his reach. The goal of Jesus coming to earth, the goal of God coming to us, is to enable us to get back to God. We are not left alone in this frightful world. The gospel of Christ was promised in the Old Testament, and fulfilled and spelled out plainly in the New Testament. The Scriptures are a complete guide to what we must believe as well as all the information we need for service and holy living (2 Timothy 3:16–17). There is an indescribable, mysterious power in the Scriptures, when read in the language of any people, and made known by preaching and teaching. That power will convert and reform individuals while also improving and refining their morals, manners, economy and material culture. Such is the power in the Bible, the written Word of God. But ultimately God has revealed Himself uniquely in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: ‘God who in various ways and many times spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets has at the last spoken to us by His son’ (Hebrews 1:1–2). His very name, Immanuel, means ‘God with us’ (Isaiah 7:14). John wrote: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” John 1:1–3 (NIV84) and he testified: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth... No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” (John 1:14, 18). And Jesus testified to Phillip: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” John 14:9 (NIV84) This Advent we hear again that God has come to us in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, who was sent to be our Saviour. Jesus came down from Heaven to reveal the glory of God. This Advent I’d like to remind you that we are those who are justified and sanctified in this life, that it was our place on the cross that was taken by God, that we are set in His place, that in this life the kingdom of God has come to us, that our old life is displaced, removed, destroyed and radically transformed in it, that our new and eternal life has begun, that our deliverance, conversion and even glorification are accomplished, that we are already dead and risen again, that we are already citizens of the future world. Friends, this is what we celebrate during Advent. This is what we are remembering every Christmas. This is the epiphany – the great revelation that stands apart from all the others. In Jesus God came to be with us. Jesus came down from heaven so that one day we could be lifted up to be with God in heaven. His presence is the end of all our searching, it is the consummation of our hope for finding God – it actually panned out that He has found us. Jesus Christ provides the perfect revelation in that it is complete and final. When God had finished speaking through our LORD there was nothing more to say; so, the risen, ascended Christ ‘sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high’. His work on earth was essentially finished. We shall yet learn more of our Lord when we see Him face to face, for there is more of His ‘grace ready to be revealed’ (1 Peter 1:5). However, God presently has no new avenues of revelation to open. In a certain way, this is true of the Scriptures. There are no new verses or chapters to be written, but it is possible every time we read the Bible or hear it explained, we may notice a new-to-me fact or gain new insight into truth only dimly perceived before. In an important sense, all revelation is by Jesus Christ, the ‘founder and perfecter of our faith’, for He provided all the others, being the Creator of both universe and mankind (John 1:1–3). He was the Giver of that original revelation, and the experiences of Israel whereby they through providence learned of God. His Spirit also gave us the Holy Scriptures (1 Peter 1:10–11). Even though our faith for salvation is wholly on Christ, we learn of Him in the Bible: Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so! And, though ‘If anyone hears my voice’, said the risen Christ to John, ‘and opens the door, I will come in to him’ (Revelation 3:20), the voice with which He speaks always expresses the truths of the words of Holy Scripture. God has come to us and day by day makes it possible for us to walk with him in greater and greater likeness to him, until that last day when we arrive in the heavenly city where gladness will displace sorrow forever. Throughout our lives the Bible seems to speak in the language in which we first heard and read the Bible. Friends, this is what we celebrate during Advent and Christmas: God’s epiphany: “Look, God, our God has come to us, born a child to bless us and to save us unto eternity!” In Jesus God has come to us in human form, bringing salvation. Through him God is ever with us, to hear the prayer of the sinner and to satisfy the desires of his saints. God has come to us as the humble, suffering servant who now reigns in majesty and before whom one day every knee will bow in unquestioning acknowledgment of his rightful place as king of the universe. The Bible teaches that God has come to us in our grief. God himself—in the person of His Son, has entered into and participated in the suffering of the human realm. Christ’s death was not just another death. By shedding His blood, He atoned for the sins of those who would turn to Him. Those who would ask forgiveness for their own sin, and who would “believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ”. Friends, today you and I are reminded that if Jesus could create the universe, then no part of life is out of His control. Jesus Christ is the highest authority for faith and daily living. Don’t allow any religious leader or teaching to diminish the words of God. Do not exclude Jesus’ wisdom and the Bible’s guidance in your complex problems of life. No expert, professor, doctor, lawyer, or financial adviser knows more about your ultimate security and well-being than Jesus does. Go first to God for advice. Talk to him in prayer and listen to him in his Word. He can support you in times of stress. From that perspective you can evaluate all the other wisdom and help made available to you. Our very lives will be reoriented by the blessing of seeing anew what it means that God has come to us in Jesus Christ. Our participation in God’s holiness is grounded in the central datum of history: The Holy God has come to us in the flesh. We are saved by God’s unmerited favour and eternally outreaching love. Christianity claims that Jesus is God, that God has come to us in Jesus who lived, died on the cross, and rose from the grave that we might have eternal life. Christianity claims, ‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.’ Faith means we believe that the kingdom of God has come to us in Christ. It means we believe there is hope in Jesus and only in him. It means we believe that rescue, healing, covering, acceptance, and cleansing are possible, and possible only in Jesus. Faith—or touching Jesus—means saying, “Jesus, I accept that You became God in human flesh to rescue me!” And therefore, let us live in the light of this great fact—that in Jesus Christ God has come to us, and spoken with us, and offered Himself for us and to us, that we may offer ourselves to Him, and so be filled with His fulness. Let its light shine on our daily path. Let its glory pierce our darkest moments. Let its grace meet all our need. Let its hope brighten all our shadows. “Great is the mystery” of religion, that God should become human; but greater its inspiration, for its end is that man might become Divine.