God in Christmas: God's Intention

Introduction

Darkness blinds, but the light of God brings life. Do you remember this guy (Show picture of Jim Lovell/Tom Hanks)? This picture is from the movie Apollo 13. This is the real guy. (Show actual Jim Lovell). Long before Jim became famous for his days on Apollo 13, he was a pilot. Specifically, a naval pilot flying off of aircraft carriers. Late one night, he was flying his F2H Banshee back to his carrier, the USS Shangri-La. In the middle of the night, without even a full moon to provide light, pilots are trained to trust their instruments. You might remember John F. Kennedy, Jr., was killed while piloting a plane. He crashed because he was not trained on flying by instruments. So back to Jim Lovell. Jim focused on his instruments as he carefully flew home. Suddenly, the instruments that he needed to get home on this darkest of nights, failed. Desperate for options, he radioed his flight chief for coordinates, only to learn that he was headed directly at the ship. If he flew too low, he’d crash into the side of the aircraft carrier, destroying his aircraft and likely dying in the accident. If he flew too high, he’d miss the landing hook required for a safe landing. Even ditching the plane in the ocean is nearly impossible because he has no idea how high he is. And just as the situation couldn’t get any worse, he loses radio contact with the carrier. Put yourself in his shoes. You’re flying in absolute darkness. You have no idea how fast you are going. You have no idea how high you are flying. Now you have no contact with the people you are with, and you feel completely alone.

Darkness is blinding. Perhaps you feel blinded, alone, or lost today. Each one of us, whether an unbeliever, a new believer, or a longtime believer hits bouts of darkness. Those phase when we cannot see the light of Christ, even if we know it is there. Going on the spiritual journey can feel like Jim Lovell’s flight as he was lost in darkness without instruments. If you sense darkness in your life, or if you believe that you will at some point, and you will, today, God has a special message just for you.

This Advent, we’re learning from a teaching by Dr. Jerry Sutton. We will learn about God’s Time, God’s Intention, God’s Capacity, and God’s Engagement. As we do, we will see God’s plan played out through history and manifested at Christmas. As God sends his son, Jesus Christ, as a baby at Christmas to rescue and redeem creation from sin and depravity. Luke 1:76-79 is Zechariah's blessing over his baby son, John, which we more commonly refer to as John the Baptist. As we read this blessing, we learn that God's promises are to be fulfilled in the man who John prepares the way for. Similarly. for us today, The highs and lows of the season are God's way of drawing us closer to Christ. But how does John's blessing reflect God's intentional act of drawing us closer to Christ? Just as John points us to Christ, the Advent season should also be a reflection of God pointing us to him. As God points us to him, we find three different aspects of God’s character that this blessings teaches us. As we learn about these three aspects of God, we learn about the intention of God.

Luke 1:76 says,

English Standard Version Chapter 1

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,

Zechariah was not surprised by the birth of John. In Luke 1:13-15, an angel tells him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord.” Zechariah had been foretold by an angel that John would be arriving. But even more so, God had prophesied hundreds of years earlier about who John was to become. In the Old Testament book of Isaiah, he says, “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Who is that voice in the wilderness? Who is the one who would prepare the way of the Lord? John the Baptist. Before John was even a thought in his parents’ mind, God knew that he would walk the earth. God called him to prepare the way for Jesus Christ.

The famous preacher, Charles Spurgeon, illustrates our all-knowing God as compared to a surgeon. A person who cuts, and cuts deeply, when he would remove a cancer from the flesh. Or a doctor who administers potent doses of medicine that may cause excruciating pain. If a surgeon is too intent on the success of his operation, or the physician watches with too much anxiety the effect his prescription has on the patient. They cannot focus too much much thought or sympathy on the patient’s suffering because he confidently anticipates the effect a permanent cure will have. So he calmly looks on, intent on the result the cure will have for the patient’s future.

But it is not exactly so with God. On a higher scale, God has all the wisdom of the physician. He views our afflictions that we endure in light of the future. Our future when he finally heals all our diseases for good and gives us beauty for ashes, the oil of joy to help us in our mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Nonetheless, God does not steel his heart to the immediate troubles of his people, but, “As a father pities his children, so Yahweh pities those who fear him” (Ps 103:13). The surgeon looks at a patient, while causing pain during the operation, with the poise of a stoic with nerves of steel. A parent may have to leave the room. So it is with God, although the splendor of his wisdom and his foreknowledge enables him to see the end as well as the beginning. Yet, believe me, as a father is pitying his children, so the Lord is pitying those who fear him.

Last week, we learned how God is not constrained by time as we are. Before each of us were born, God knew us intimately. He sees the beginning, middle, and end of our life, at the same moment. David prays in Psalm 139:23, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!” As the Lord calls us, he also knows us intimately. Deeper than any human does or can, even deeper than we know us. He knows our deepest longings and desires. He knows our deepest insecurities, fears, and sins. He even knows our pet peeves. He called and sent John before he was even born. In a similar way, he knows us and sends us. And in that, we should find comfort. Comfort knowing that God doesn’t clean the fish before he catches them. The first aspect of God that we learn here is,

God sends as God sanctifies.

Zechariah continues on in Luke 1:77-78 saying that John’s mission will be “to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high.” John’s mission was to prepare the way for Jesus. Jesus’ mission was redemption from the fall of mankind by dying on the Cross and rising again on the third day. Therefore, John was sent to prepare the way for the greatest act of love in history. As scripture says, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

Love is a word that is used constantly. I love candy or chocolate. I love my favorite football team or baseball team. I love my boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse, or even, dog. It’s the topic of all sorts of books, movies, songs, and podcasts. But the kind of love that god expresses for us through his son, is the deepest and the most powerful kind of love. It’s a pour, selfless love that nonetheless brings him glory. Romans 5:8 says it like this, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The selfless love of God can also translate to confusion though. After all, if God loves us, why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? If God loves us, why doesn’t he heal our broken relationships?

Oftentimes, the reason we get confused about God’s love is because we don’t understand God, we don’t understand ourselves, or we don’t understand what we need from God. We look at circumstances that surround us, and we simply want freed from the pain. We see a society with so much wrong with it, without first looking at the way our own sin has contributed to it. As one person once said, “there can be no social transformation without spiritual regeneration.” Experiencing the love of God begins with surrendering to the love of God. This why John was sent on a mission to prepare the way for Christ. As God was preparing for the greatest act of love, which is why we can experience forgiveness from our sins and receive the tender mercy of God.

Ron Prosise shares of an illustration from, once again, Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon once went to visit a friend who had built a new barn. On top of the barn was a weather vane with the words, “God is love.” Spurgeon asked his friend, “What do you mean by that? Do you mean that God’s love is as changeable as the wind?” His friend answered, “No, I believe that God is love whichever way the wind blows.” Experiencing the love of God comes down to surrendering to the love of God. In his book, Surrender to Love, David Benner writes, “It is surrender to love that I really resist. I am willing to accept measured doses of love as long as it doesn’t upset the basic framework of my world. That framework is built on the assumption that people get what they deserve. That’s what I really want.” The second aspect of God that we learn is

The love of God bears fruit if we surrender to it.

Zechariah finishes this prophecy in Luke 1:79 when he tells us that Jesus will “give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” The Old Testament people of God were lost. They had tried every possible way to reach salvation through their own means. 150 years earlier, they had even attempted to revolt against the empire that was ruling their land, only to be under Roman rule as this text begins. Christ arrived when he did because it was at the “fullness of time.” The moment when people had tried everything possible to figure it out on their own. But when they had tried their best, and, they had failed, God’s intentional plan moved into its next phase.

In our final Charles Spurgeon reference for today, he puts it like this, “Frequently in crossing the Alps, when one has been very faint and thirsty, it has been a sweet rest to sit down by a running spring and wash one’s face and feet, or bathe oneself in it. You may have walked until you are very footsore—you sit down to bathe your feet, and if you have found a mere pool, you will stir the bottom of it, and it will soon be very filthy. But when it is a running spring, you can sit and wash, and wash, and wash again, and if you do stir the sand at the bottom, the earth is all gone in a moment because the water still comes bubbling up fresh and fresh, and therefore it is always clean. So it is with the grace of God in a Christian. It never gets flat and dull and dead, and the daily pollutions and washing of our feet do not stain it, because it is a living spring and arises from those “fresh springs” that David sings about that he rejoiced to find in the Lord his God. It is very hard work to play the part of a Christian if you do not have a spring within you.”

We experience the light of Christ in a dark world because God sent Christ, which we celebrate each year at Christmas. But experience the light of Christ is not a one time thing. rather, Christ will continue to shine his light into the nooks and crannies and crevices of our soul throughout our journey, throughout our spiritual journey. Because at Christmas, God’s intentional plan of redemption moved into the next phase, the time when Christ would rescue. When Christ would at least shine his light into the darkest of nights.

God gives light to those who sit in darkness.

When Jim Lovell lost all contact, he started focusing more on the area outside of the plane, since there wasn’t much to see anymore inside the plane. That’s when he noticed a faint, ethereal glow in the dark water. This was the phosphorescent glow of algae that lives in the Pacific Ocean. The carrier’s giant propeller had stirred up the glowing organisms, leaving a stream of pale light in its wake. The closer Jim Lovell got, the more brightly the cloud of algae glowed. This was all that he needed. Using the soft, green light as his guide, Lowell brought his plane in for a safe landing on deck of the USS Shangri-La. Little did he know that this landing prepared him for the most challenging mission of his life. Lovell recalled this experience in a 1999 interview with NASA. He said that the experience gave him the inspiration to remain strong until Apollo 13 was completed.

God was not surprised by the fall of mankind, the sin of yesterday, or the cries of the crowd to crucify Jesus. Rather, God is an intentional God. A God who shines his light into the darkness of this world and into the darkness of our souls that we would see his light. So if today you are struggling to see the shining light of Christ in your darkness, remember the three aspects of God and his intentional plan of redemption. God sends as he sanctifies. The love of God bears fruit if we surrender to it. God gives light to those who sit in darkness.