Dec 20th - In Person

The Angels’ Message (Transcription) Grace, mercy and peace be onto you, in the name of our God and Father, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen You know at the time of Mary and Joseph, Mary and Joseph didn’t really have a say in their marriage. It was Mary’s parents and Joseph’s parents who got together, and they decided “We’re going to have these two married.” No love involved, no courtship. They said this was going to be, so it was. The engagement, or the betrothal lasted one year. And it was so binding, that if Joseph would have died that year, Mary would have been considered a widow. No sexual relations during that year, nothing. What’s interesting is that it’s still happening today. I told you that my wife and I, we teach in Ethiopia and Tanzania, and in Tanzania, we had a good friend of ours named John Abraham Abese. And he was a Lutheran pastor. Well, we saw him about a year and a half ago the last time, and he was not engaged. And then last year, when we went in June, in the summer, he was at his engagement party that her parents, and his mom – his dad had died – had gotten together, and they were married. And you may think “That’s really strange.” Just a side note, you talk about the Jewish community and you talk about Tanzania, and their divorce rate is like single digits. It’s nothing compared to what we have in America. So obviously, it’s working. Well, we’ll see about that. So now we have – and Brian did a great job on that children’s message – how the angel Gabriel came to Mary and said, “You are highly favored.” And I thought about that, and the Greek word for angel is Angelos. And it literally means messenger. And remember last week, we talked about how Gabriel came to Zacharia to announce he would have a son – John the Baptist. And now we have Mary coming. And I was thinking, there’s kind of a misconception about angels, so I found a list of children and what their thoughts of angels are, and I’m going to just share four of them. Here’s Greggory, age 5: “I only know two angels. Hark and Herod” And then you have Mitchell, age 7: “Angels work for God and watch over kids when God has to go do something.” Henry, age 8: “My guardian angel helps me with math, but he’s not so good at science.” And this is one of my favorites: “My angel is my grandma, who died last year. She got a big head start on helping me when she was still down here on earth.” -Caitlin, age 9. We think about what these angels do, and Gabriel is the one name we have. Michael is the other one we have, and that’s the book of Revelation. He’s this flaming sword warrior angel. And as the one said, guardian angels – and I personally think that guardian angels have to work harder for boys than for girls, but that’s because my two oldest were boys. But the important thing is that the angels came, and what did Mary say? I think about - we see Mary and she is a Jewish girl. She has grown up listening to the Rabbi talk about this Messiah, this Anointed One is going to come. So even though this angel is coming, and initially she’s (afraid), he just says “Do not fear, because you’re going to have this child, you’re going to call him Jesus, which literally means ‘He who saves.’” And the other thing that you have to understand is that from Malachi until now, the end of the Old Testament until now, almost 400 years, mothers and dads have been naming their sons Jesus, Jeshua, He Who Saves, thinking that maybe he will be The One. But Mary is the one who is chosen. As Mr. Betts said, she was to be the Favored One. And you know, sometimes we get maybe a little wondering about our Roman Catholic friends, because they make such a big deal of Mary, but sometimes, I think we don’t make enough of a big deal of Mary. She is the passive part of our salvation. Jesus is the active part, but she is the passive part. I’m not saying we should pray to her but honor her. Speak well of her. Yeah. Very much. As we think about that, though, and we think about obedience in our lives, C.S. Lewis, who wrote Chronicles of Narnia, among other things, he talks about obedience being the key to opening the door. And it’s true, but it’s kind of novel for us, isn’t it? I mean, we live in a culture where we say “Do what you wanna do. As long as I don’t hurt anybody, what’s the big deal?” And we could go on and on and on. And obedience isn’t right up there, but if you read through scripture, all 66 books, you will see that when you are obedient to God, when you follow Him, you are blessed. Blessed beyond understanding as to who we are and what we are, because we are walking with Him. He says we are blessed to be a blessing for that reason. What’s interesting to me, is how God chooses to work amongst us. For almost 40 years, Trinity – the church that I retired from – has been going to the Appalachian Mountains (they say it differently than that down there) and doing sermon events. Fifty-day sermon events all three of my adult children went two years each. And what’s interesting, is that you go to the Appalachians, and you reach Asheville, North Carolina and then you go up in the hills, and you go into a completely different world. No running water. A lot of times, no electricity. And what our sermon events would do, they would come in and they would make these big trenches and they’d make these things to put into septic tanks, because they didn’t have any place to do their stuff. Or they’d make handicapped ramps. And it’s just amazing how appreciative these people were. I would just watch my kids, and every year they went, they would be changed because they would see what people didn’t have. I share that with you, because when we think about how God works, Jesus was raised in Nazareth. And Nazareth was a lot like the Appalachians, the people of Appalachia. Was up in the hills, not a rich town by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, if you remember when Nathaniel came after Andrew invited him to meet Jesus, and Nathaniel says “Nazareth? What good could come out of Nazareth?” And again, this is why the Christmas message touches so many people. He came to the least. Remember, John the Baptist was a Nazarite, he didn’t do his hair. Sampson was a Nazarite. Same thing. They were kind of a different type of people, but God worked in the midst of that. In 1971, he was an unemployed salesman living out of his car. He went into a diner, and the mom and pop who owned it, they saw him get out of his car, they saw the back of his seat that had all his clothes, and they knew he was living in there. So, when he came to pay the bill, they wouldn’t accept his payment. In fact, they gave him $20 and then they took him across the street and filled up his tank with gas. Fast forward eight years, he’s been very successful. In fact, he was able to start his own business. And he started giving back anonymously. A few years after that, he went back to the diner, and he found out that mom and pop had retired, and he was taking care of his wife because she was ill. So, he found out where they lived, and he drove over there. He wrote a check for $10,000 to help them out. To me, that’s kind of what this season is about. Because you think about what it means for us. Christmas, it’s talking about the greatest gift, and that’s God’s son. As we think about the giving that is part of that. How many of you open your presents on Christmas Eve? Christmas Day? The rest of you don’t get gifts? We always remind our kids: this is what it’s about. And we have a prayer of thanksgiving when we open them. Because it’s about the greatest gift. Remember that passage out of John 3:16 that’s sometimes the Gospel in a nutshell. It says, “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” That’s what this wonderful cradle is about. Because it goes to the cross, and then it goes to the crown that has been won for us. But there’s another way to say this. I’m going to have you do this. When I say “For God so loved the” instead of “world,” I want you to use your name. See, that’s the personal side of Christmas. That’s the very genuine, grace-filled side of Christmas. For God so loved Pastor Schultz. For God so loved Caitlin. And Jonathan. And everybody here. Is what this season is about. The giving of God’s son. What that means, then, is we are sons and daughters of God. I don’t know if you remember him, but this is Dave Thomas, he was the CEO of Wendy’s. What you might not know, was that he was adopted. And because he was adopted, he was constantly trying to get kids into families. And one time, he was doing a shot that they were going to have a two-to three-minute vignette, and he had these two kids. One was an older brother, although he was only 7 or 8, and the little sister who was only 4 or 5. And before they got ready to do the shooting, the brother said, “I don’t want to be adopted with her. Look at her!” Well, the little girl had a scar that ran across her face, where her father, when he was drunk, threw a beer bottle at her, and messed her up. And I think the brother loved his sister, but he knew with this disfiguration, with this scar, that maybe he would not be adopted. And the one thing Dave Thomas knew was that he had to keep this brother and sister together. And his friend was there, and he kind of saved the day. Because he took out his billfold and said “Here.” And he handed each of them a $100 bill, and he said, “I want you to go shopping, and I want you to get something very special for your sibling. I want you to think about your brother, I want you to think about your sister, and I want you to get something that will really make them happy.” And the man said “you need to write it down. I want you to write to me about it.” And off they went. And through that, they bonded, because they were giving to each other. And yes, through that TV thing that Dave Thomas did, there was a family that said, “We want both of them.” And years later, the parents of those children kept saying, “They’re so tight, they’re so close together, they looked out for each other.” You and I are adopted. In fact, we are sons and daughters of the Most High. And yeah, we have scars, too, don’t we? Yet, in spite of that, God takes us in. It’s also what this season is all about. It’s also about what that manger is all about. But today, what’s missing again? There’s no baby, right? Thursday, we get to light the candle, and I’d be willing to say, that when I show my last slide, what do you suppose is going to be in there? Yeah. The Christ child. Who came for you and for me. That’s why we can say, “For God so loved the world” and put our name in it. For we are His, and He is ours. In Jesus’ name, Amen. Now may the peace that passes all understanding, preserve and keep our hearts and minds in Jesus Christ. Amen.