God With Us Pt 1

Intro

What is your favorite Christmas tradition?

Christmas comes around once a year and it is often a time that many of us look forward to. Often times when we think about Christmas we think about those traditions that we just mentioned as our favorites. We think about going to grandmas house, leaving out cookies for Santa, going caroling, getting presents, putting up the Christmas tree, etc.

I think we often forget the awesomeness of Christmas, however. Who has ever heard the word “advent”? Somebody tell me what that means? (Advent is the arrival of Jesus.) Christmas is often referred to as the time of advent. It is a time where we get to remember the time where God himself, came to us. He arrived to this world.

Think about how awesome that is. That the perfect creator of this world came down to it to spend time with his people, show his people how to live, and save his people.

If we were to truly think about that it will blow our minds. But too often we get in the traditions of Christmas and our minds simply wash over that fact. We don’t take time to reflect on what that means.

Over the next two weeks we are going to look at the arrival of Jesus and what it means for us.

Read Luke 2:1-7

The need for Jesus

Why did Jesus come to earth? Wasn’t everything good for him where he was?

If we get this question wrong then our theology (what we believe about God) could end up being way wrong. If we think Jesus came to teach us morals and how to be good then he would obviously need to still be here showing us how to do so because his job would certainly not be over. If he cam for political gain then we would not be at war.

Read Luke 19:1-10

We needed Jesus to come to save sinners.

You see Zacchaeus was a sinner. Jesus called out his sin, forgave him of his sin, and granted him salvation.

Once again many of us could answer this question but do we think about it enough?

Do we really think about the fact that we’ve messed up? That we have sinned and that’s why Jesus needed to come. Romans 3:23 tells that we’ve all messed up. We don’t really like to think about this because we don’t like admitting that we have problems right?

Who enjoys being told the messed up or even being told what to do?

Jesus came so that we could be saved from our sins. We do need to reflect, ask forgiveness and to repent of our sins.

Reflecting

It is important for us to think about how our sins affect God, us and others. It is important for us to reflect on our sin. To think about the impact that it could have on ourselves and others. Asking God to forgive us of our sins is not a “Get out of jail free card” We need to spend time reflecting and asking why we sinned and think about the consequences of our sins.

Forgiveness

1 John 1:9 tells us

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

When we confess our sins, God already knows them but it is still important for us to apologize and confess them for ourselves.

And what will happen? We are told that God will forgive us because of Jesus.

Repentance

When you are going one way and make a correction do go the other way. This is an important part of the process.

The story of Ariel taking us to the wrong airport in Dallas.