God Comes to Us as Faith

What is the best Christmas present that you received this year?

Advent means “God Comes to Us”

Advent typically has four Sundays. Since we have a fifth Sunday in December this year I thought I would add another sermon to the series.

It can refer to the coming of God to earth in Jesus or it can refer to Jesus’ second coming.

The fact that we live between these two advents means that we have a role in this story.

It can refer to the coming of God to earth in Jesus or it can refer to Jesus’ second coming.

Let’s review how God comes to us:

Hope is confidence in the goodness of God.

Peace is the experience of the goodness of God.

Joy is our internal response to the goodness of God.

Love is our active response to the goodness of God.

Faith is all of the above.

God comes to us as faith-- faith to believe, faith to repent and faith to participate in what God is doing.

What is Faith?

Acts 3:12–21 ESV

And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all. “And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

Jesus came.

Mary and Joseph obeyed.

The shepherds and the angels bore witness.

The wise men worship.

What you do with all of this information is called faith.

You might say, “If I’m supposed to do something then it’s not God coming to us, It’s me that’s doing it.”

The Bible tells us that even what we are able to do is a gift from God.

Philippians 2:13 ESV

for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

In the NT, faith and faithfulness are the same word.

phil 2:13

It’s only according to context that we can diferentiate

Faith describes the substance of our relationship with God.

In faith, there’s God’s part and there’s my part.

If I’m worried about what’s my part and what’s God’s part, I miss the point.

What I think is my part is really God working through me.

And sometimes God will ask me to do things that only He can do.

After Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, the disciples Peter and John began to find out what faith really means.

To answer the question, “What is faith?” we’re going to start in the middle of the story with Peter’s sermon.

Faith to believe

Acts 3:12–16 ESV

And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.

Faith is the ability to accept what is true.

According to Peter’s testimony, Most of the Jewish people- God’s people, were in denial as to who Jesus really was and is.

Faith is the ability to accept what is true.

As if Jesus’ birth was not enough to convince anyone of His divinity, His death and resurrection are the ultimate proof.

For anyone to come to faith, the important question is, “Who is Jesus Christ?”

Is He real? When did you first discover that Jesus is real?

Is Jesus God? Lots of religions revere Jesus but they stop short of calling Him God. Why? because if He’s God then He has absolute authority.

Is Jesus Lord? That’s the real question. If Jesus is Lord, then everything must come under the authority of Jesus Christ!

Faith is the willingness to trust what we have come to know.

Our English word “believe” doesn’t exactly capture all that it means to have faith in Jesus.

Trust is a better word because it implies something that we do with our whole being, not just our mind.

You can believe that a chair will hold you, but trust has you put your full weight on it.

Faith is the exercise of applying what we know to how we live.

So Jesus is God who lived, died and rose again for you and me. So what? What difference does it make?

What it means for you is that you are more that just a person who eats, sleeps and breathes for you own pleasure. You have a greater purpose! God’s purpose.

Peter went from being the disciple who denied Jesus to being the one to tell the whole city that they were wrong to nail Jesus to the cross.

Peter changed. He turned from denial to face the truth about Jesus. And then he began to do the things that Jesus did.

Faith to repent

Acts 3:17–21 ESV

“And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

Act 3:1

You are responsible for what you know.

Peter gives the people a way to save face - they acted in ignorance.

The problem with ignorance is that you can be ignorant and not even know it!

But when you have revelation and you ignore it, what’s your excuse?

There are lots of people out there who are living their lives in ignorance to the things of God.

But that’s not us. We know too much to plead ignorance.

So if we know what they need to know and don’t know, what are we waiting for?

To repent means to turn around.

When you realize that you are going the wrong direction and you stop and turn around - that’s repentance.

You simply admit that you made a mistake and you change. What’s so hard about that?

Well apparently, it’s a lot harder than we think because no one uses that word anymore.

To the believer repentance is a gift!

As often as you realize that you have missed following God in some area of your life, you can change.

That’s great! You don’t need to keep making the same old mistakes.

What keeps us from repentance is pride.

Sometimes Christians have the worst kind of pride because they have been pretending to have it all together and they don’t want anyone to know that they’re not perfect.

Someone might say, “I did all that. I took Elijah House and I repented.” So why did you stop?

Repentance should be a lifestyle for the believer, not something you do once, but something that you do regularly as you grow in grace.

Repentance leads to restoration.

The Christian life isn’t all repenting. There are times of refreshing that come from the Lord.

Repentance isn’t actually our focus.

Our focus is on the presence of the Lord.

Repentance is simply making the adjustment when our thoughts and attitudes are not like what we see in Jesus.

Jesus is the perfect image of God and God is about restoration.

We can see in Jesus what God originally designed us to be.

He shows us what humanity looks like without sin.

God is restoring us into His image in Christ.

Let’s go back to the beginning of the chapter to see what restoration looks like.

Faith to participate

Acts 3:1–10 ESV

Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple. Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up, he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

Restoration means seeing people that way that God sees them

Peter and John told the lame man to look at them.

That might not seem remarkable except that beggars would not normally look at people in the eye.

People gave to the beggar out of pity, Peter and John were giving him dignity.

Jesus came to restore our identity as sons and daughters of God.

Healing is not just about giving God glory.

It’s about restoring a person to their god-given identity and destiny. -That’s what gives God glory!

Restoration means giving out of what God has given to you.

Peter and John said, “ what I do have, I give.”

What did they have? Only the power of the living Creator inside of them through the Holy Spirit!

If you have the fullness of the Holy Spirit, it should spill out onto other people.

When we get to heaven, I would like to ask Moses, “What was it like to cross the Red Sea with the Egyptian Army chasing you?” I would like to ask Elijah, “what was it like to see fire fall from heaven?” Or to ask Daniel, “What was it like to be delivered from the lion’s den?”

But they will ask us, “What was it like to have the Holy spirit living inside you?”

What will you tell them that you were able to do with that gift?

Restoration means doing the things that Jesus did by faith.

The story of advent is not finished.

We still have the second advent to come.

But in the in-between time we have the Holy Spirit in us to help us to do the things that Jesus did.

We can heal the sick and the lame like Peter and John did.

But even more, we can help restore people to their god-given identity and destiny.

We can make a lifestyle of repentance so that we are aligned with God’s purpose.

We can live by faith, trusting in Jesus as Lord!

Communion

1 cor 10

1 Corinthians 10:16–17 ESV

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

In communion we participate, symbolically, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

What is something that you need to bring to death? What is God asking you to repent of?

Ungodly habits?

Selfish attitudes?

Unforgiveness?

Christ’s body was broken for you. He bore you sin, your shame and your pain in His body on the cross.

As you partake of the bread, remember Christ’s body broken for you.

What is something that God wants to bring to life in place of what you have given?

Ask God, “what will you give me in place of what I am giving to you?”

The cup represents the blood of Christ which is also His life.

He not only shed His blood, His life, for you; He also wants to pour His life into you.

As you receive the cup, receive the life of Christ that He gives freely to you!