Sermon Tone Analysis

We prepare for what we value.

I want to show you this.

These are my Diving Mask, snorkel etc, when I was younger I loved diving.

I had been a snorkeler and an instructor, I played octopush (underwater hockey), I trained as a novice diver, and sports diver.

I had wetsuits, the drysuits, buoyancy aids, cylinders, regulators - everything I need to go diving andI loved it.

It was the highlight of my week.

Let me explain a typical diving trip to the glorious sub-tropical surroundings of Stoney Cove in Leicestershire.

An old Granite quarry.

Preparation would start at the end of the last dive with the washing of all your equipment, then the drying of of it all, some time before going diving again I would bike the 15 miles from my home to the nearest diving shop to have my cylinder refilled with air, which took ten minutes or so and then cycling fifteen miles home - with a bomb on my back

On the day we would dive, it was a .

45 minute drive, another -40-50 minutes to kit up, and have the obligatory bacon butty.

then we would kit the water.

Depending on what you did determined how long the dive would be, if we went to the deepest part of the lake, you would be diving for about 15 minutes.

Before taking the kit off, and driving home.

The Dive preparation would be in the order of 5-6 hours for 15 minutes in freezing cold water.

- but it was worth it.

It is amazing what we will do in order to prepare for something we value, something we care about.

Preparation is the key

Today, we celebrate the 2nd week in the Advent .

Last week, we talked about the first candle and its’ representation of Hope.

This week, we will look at preparation.

Today, we celebrate the 2nd week in the Advent season.

We continue with our sermon series on the Advent wreath.

Last week, we talked about the first candle and its’ representation of Hope.

This week, we will look at the 2nd candle which represents preparation.

Many of us go through our own version of preparations to get ready for Christmas.

We set-up Christmas trees and decorate them with lights, fancy ornaments and perhaps a star on top.

Or even tastefully adorne our houses with enough lights for low flying aircraft to mistake us for the runaway.

We brave the shops to purchase gifts for our loved ones in remembrance of the gifts brought to Jesus by the wise men.

We prepare for the holiday by setting up physical reminders of Christmas all around us.

We invest time, effort and imagination in preparing for this event and following traditions either cultural or personal.

we do this because we care about it.

We care about the times with our families, the food, the presents and for some of us the meaning of Christmas.

whatever our driver we spend more time preparing so the event is easy.

I learned years ago that if you want an easy Christmas Dinner, get someone else to cook it!

but if you can’t do that the secret is to prepare as much as possible in advance.

Those of you who will be taking A levels, GCSEs, Driving tests will all know the secret to pulling it off on the day of the test is the preparation you put in the years, months and weeks before hand.

Gods Plan

As christians we often look at the birth of Jesus and the death and resurrection of Jesus as being isolated events that bring us salvation and freedom - and they do.

We see them as surprising events -He sent a baby, who would have thought of that.

He died and rose again - We never saw that coming.

These events are amazing, surprising and miraculous.

But God prepared these events in advance.

A plan started from that fateful day in eden or even from the beginning of time.

His preparations took longer than a day or a week.

His preparations required thousands of people and centuries to complete.

But, God had his own way of preparing.

His preparations took longer than a day or a week.

His preparations required thousands of people and centuries to complete.

He sent the savior into the world at a specific time of his choosing, to a specific woman with her betrothed.

A certain town, in a certain country, at a certain time to a certain family.

There was nothing by chance as to when, where, who and to whom the coming messiah would arrive in this world.

It was not an accident that this all occurred that this moment in history.

It was not a fleeting response to a nice situation, but a meticulously planned event that was designed to change the history of the world.

The coming of the Christ was well rehearsed, projected centuries earlier and all by the knowing hand of God.

He had this idea from the very beginning.

He sent the savior into the world at a specific time of his choosing, to a specific woman and her fiancee.

To a certain town, in a certain country, at a certain time to a certain family.

This was not a fluke or randomness.

There was nothing by chance as to when, where, who and to whom the coming Jesys would arrive in this world.

It was not an accident that this all occurred that this moment in history.

It was a meticulously planned event that was designed to change the history of the world and the lives of each of us.

The coming of the Christ child was planned, projected centuries earlier and all by the knowing hand of God.

He had this idea from the very beginning.

In the Beginning

As early as the book of Genesis, God already had a plan for our future.

Our earliest ancestors, Adam and Eve, fell into sin in the Garden of Eden.

It wasn’t until this sin that a plan of salvation was needed.

After all, the sinless do not need to be saved.

It is only the sinner who has been condemned.

But, as soon as God had man and women admit to their error,

The preparation started - the preparation for forgiveness is recognising you have done wrong.

God already had a plan for renewal.

Through which, all mankind would have hope for the future a. Preparations were already being made to save a world full of souls that hadn’t even been born yet.

Here, in the Garden of Eden, God spoke of the coming saviour.

He said to the serpent:

“I will put an enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

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The woman spoken of here is Eve.

This was not a chance occurrence, but the beginning preparations for the coming Messiah - the plan that would lead to Christmas was set.

This earliest of prophecies spoke of an offspring, it spoke of a saviour; preparations for Jesus who would come centuries later.

The plan was already created and set into motion from the very first sin.

But, this plan would not impact for generations.

You know if God had of dealt with evil there and then, the plan would not have worked.

God needed to learn about ourselves, our desires, our abilities our shortcomings, our strength.

God wanted us to desire the relationship with him - he instrumented free choice - he built in preparation time.

The God fearing Israelites needed to grow before they could receive the Christ.

They had to explore their world and explore their faith before the world was ready for Jesus.

I think that is as much true of each of us as it was of the people of the bible.

have had the same impact to us if he had come immediately in Eden.

We needed to learn about ourselves.

God saw this and built time into the preparations.

The God fearing Israelites needed to grow before they could receive the Christ.

They had to explore their world and explore their faith before the world was ready for Jesus.

Although the elements were present in the Garden of Eden, time was a tool that worked towards God’s plan.

God chose to use this time to institute some of his prophecies to show His people the truth.

After all, Adam and Eve were given the pleasure of being able to talk directly with God.

The spoke with God, not in prayer, but just as I am speaking to you.

They didn’t pray to God, they conversed with Him.

As time moved forward, God used his prophets to write down the events of the future.

I’m sure God intended to show us His truth by allowing us to compare the prophecies with the actual events.