Advent: God's Search for Humanity- Isaiah 7:14; 9:6-7

Sermon: FCC Marianna 12-19-2021 Advent: God's Search for Humanity Scripture: Isaiah 7:14, 9:6-7 As we conclude this Advent season, this run up to the celebration of Christ's birth, we are going to examine God's response to our journey of obedience and surrender, at His offer of intimacy to each of us, and of His journey to rescue His beloved creation. We've looked at the journey of the shepherds and at the reasons why God purposefully chose to use the shepherds, the lowest of the low, to be the first to know Jesus and to tell others about Him. The story of the shepherds is a reminder that Jesus did not come for the religious elites; He came to bring us all back into right relationship with the Father. And we've looked at the journey of the Wise Men, the Magi from Persia, and at the reasons why God chose gentile scholars to come find and worship the Jewish Messiah. The story of the Wise Men's obedience is a reminder that you and I must also go on a journey of obedience and surrender to the know the Messiah. Thankfully, the Wise Men show us that relationship with the Father is for everyone, not just the Jews. -God's search for humanity is a purposeful act- God orchestrated all these things- brought Jesus to us as a baby, allowed Jesus to live alongside us, put every temptation and struggle that we could every face in front of- to allow us to know that He is a God that has gone through the worst of it and to remind us of our need for relationship with Him- to prepare us for His death on the cross, so that we could have relationship with Him. With that search comes an invitation: this entire season is an invitation. Read: Isaiah 7:14, 9:6-7 Pray here! Quote: "Enemy-occupied territory- that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. When you go to church, you are really listening to [the secret communication of instructions from the King]; that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going." (CS Lewis- Mere Christianity) Main Point: Contrary to the popular Christian idiom, Jesus is NOT the reason for this season; WE ARE! This Advent Season, Christmas, is the story of God's plan and purpose: to get US back! To rescue us, those who rebelled against Him and lived in rebellion against His will. He comes with a plan to provide for us a way to come back into right relationship with Him. He hand-delivers an invitation of intimacy, the very opportunity for you to accept salvation and reconciliation- hand-delivering it behind enemy lines and directly to your doorstep! -God literally put aside His own rightful deity in order to come to save us. The incarnation is the union of the Divine, the culmination of every great and amazing thing, and humanity in the amazing person of Jesus Christ. Psalm 33 describes how God spoke and the earth and the universe around it was formed- "The Heavens were made by the Word of the Lord, and all the stars, by the breath of His mouth... For He spoke, and it came into being; He commanded, and it came into existence." (Psalm 33:6,9) That Word, the one mighty enough to create everything without lifting a finger, then became flesh, joined us in these weak, frail, perishable bodies, in order to come live beside us, experience all of the worst of humanity, and then experience the worst death possible- in order to wipe clean our rebellious past and bring us back into right relationship with God. -God's invitation simply says this: "I love you so much that I am willing to walk through the worst things with you and then literally die for you (terrible physical death, but also crushing spiritual death) just to get you back." -Where could you possibly find a greater love than that!? -I love the ending of Psalm 33: "We wait for Yahweh; He is our help and shield. For our hearts rejoice in Him because we trust in His holy name. May your faithful love rest on us, Yahweh, for we put our hope in You." (Ps. 33:20-22) This is the sum of the Advent Season: we understand that we have no hope without our God, and Advent is the story of the moment when God sprang into action to come to our rescue! Point 1: God chose this journey for a purpose; there is no other god who would have done things this way. God became us to show us how much He loves us and then to save us from ourselves. "Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name Him Emmanuel." (Isaiah 7:14) God could have done things completely differently. Everything about how He gave up His divinity to come save humanity is contrary to a normal vision for how a conquering King should arrive. He didn't; He purposefully did things in order to show us His amazing love for us- to show us that we are His purpose, not wealth, not power- getting us back is the reason. God Himself will give us a sign- and the sign is Him! He stepped out of His throne room and into humanity. -He didn't have to step into humanity. The Creator God, the omnipotent, all-powerful Creator of all things, could have simply wiped out life on this planet and started again somewhere else. Time is not an issue- He is outside of time; it wasn't a matter of inconvenience. It wouldn't have been anything to scrap the experiment- Humanity on Planet Earth, free will- scrapped. Begin again with slightly changed mission parameters. But He didn't. He stuck with us. He decided that despite our rebellion, He would save us. -Of course, He didn't have to step foot on earth. He could have handled it with a few angels. A few messengers to a few key people surely could have changed or shaped the direction of humanity. Throw a burning bush into the Garden of Eden; better yet, don't allow access to the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He could have handled it all from the throneroom of the Heavenly Realm. But He didn't; He came to live amongst us. -He didn't have to come as a baby. He could have stepped out of the Heavenly Realm as a grown man, a warrior in His prime, ready to storm the gates in Jerusalem with His angel warriors at His side. After liberating Israel from the Romans, it wouldn't have been an issue at all for the one that created the universe to make a quick hope over to Rome and take out the Roman Empire. This is what the Romans were expecting: they were waiting for a King to rise out of Palestine that would challenge their rule; they just didn't expect it to be a spiritual challenge rather than a physical one. Jesus could have established His earthly Kingdom and reign in year 0 and now have been in His 2019th year as King. But He didn't- He willingly chose to live life alongside us and to die for us in order that we might find reconciliation with God. -If it was a more anonymous route that He was looking for, He could have stepped into any point in existence as an adult, ready to begin His earthly ministry. He didn't have to go through birth. He could have skipped past childhood and puberty. He could have appeared right as John was ready to baptize Him and then stepped into His ministry as normal. But He didn't- He willingly went through childhood and puberty, to live life like us, in order to connect with us and to be able to say that He went through everything we do- in order to help bring us into reconciliation with God. -Even if God decided that Jesus had to come as a baby, He could have chosen to direct Christ's birth any myriad of ways- He could have had Him born into the ruling class of Jewish elites, born into a palace to be worshipped and doted upon; He could have made Jesus' kingship very easy for everyone to recognize. -God could have arranged for the nicest room in all of Bethlehem to be open to Mary and Joseph. -He could have arranged for the most important Jewish dignitaries to be present to immediately usher Jesus into a coronation in order to declare Him a King immediately. But He didn't. Indeed, as we've talked about over the last two weeks, in God's amazing, eternal perspective and perfect plan, He chose to do things in a way that makes sense to no one- He chose to confound those who consider themselves to be wise and strong. God chose to step into humanity in the most obscure way possible in order to live a normal life and then die the most horrendous death, all in effort to draw as many as possible into His Kingdom. It reminds me of this statement by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23: "Although I am a free man and not anyone's slave, I have made myself a slave to everyone, in order to win more people. To the Jews, I became like a Jew, to win Jews; to those under the law, like one under the law- though I myself am not under the law- to win those under the law. To those without the law, like one without the law- not being without God's law, but within Christ's law- to win those without the law. To the weak I became weak, in order to win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I may by every possible means win some. Now I do all this because of the Gospel, so that I may become a partner in its benefits." -Like the Apostle Paul said, Jesus became the most basic thing that all of humanity shares: a baby. He grew in the womb, was born, had a tough childhood, went through an awkward adolescence, and became an adult. He became all things to all men- -We can relate to Jesus because He did things the way that we all do it. -We can trust God's intentions, because while He could have done things very differently, He didn't; He did things the same way He has us do them. He became us to save us! Point 2: The Kingdom established by God through Jesus, the Kingdom of God, will be vast and dominant, but it is up to us, its citizens, in the present to make it eternal. "For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on His shoulders. He will be named Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over His Kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this." (Isaiah 9:6-7) -I don't want anyone to caught up in the terminology there; we are not "making" the Kingdom, but we are the ones that must facilitate the growth and health of the Kingdom until Christ's return and His subsequent eternal reign over the Kingdom. -Christ pulls off the most daring, inconceivable invasion of enemy-occupied territory, He spends 33 years in this fallen world, living life alongside His fallen Creation, He sacrifices Himself in order to make a way for us to reconcile with God and then- turns it over to us until He gets back. Says "You've got this. Tell people about me and what I did. Be such good people that others want to follow Me too. I'll be back when the Kingdom is ready." -Not only did Jesus do things so out of character by coming to live amongst us, but His time here had more of an impact than any other human being who ever lived. The devil couldn't understand what was happening then and He sure can't stand what continues to happen to this day: that Jesus' time here changes lives. -The more people that we tell about this Jesus and what He did for them, the more lives that will change, the larger the Kingdom grows and the closer we are to the day when He returns and we get to go home! Did you hear me? We get to go home and enter into our reward! -Here's the thing: The enemy doesn't want it to happen. The enemy wants to prolong his rule here on earth for as long as possible. The enemy doesn't want people to know what Christ has done for them or the cultural impact that Christianity has had on the world. The enemy wants people blinded to the impact of Christianity and its ability to change their lives. What are some of the cultural impacts that Christianity is responsible for? -Human Rights: The concept of universal human rights and equality comes exclusively from the Biblical idea that all people are created in the image of God. -Women and children's rights: In ancient cultures, a wife was the property of her husband. Aristotle said that a woman was somewhere between a free man and a slave. It was extremely common in the Greco-Roman world to throw out new female infants to die from exposure, because of the low status of women in society. The church forbade its members to do so. -Greco-Roman society saw no value in an unmarried woman, and therefore it was illegal for a widow to go more than two years without remarrying. But Christianity was the first religion to not force widows to marry. They were supported financially and honored within the community of Believers so that they were not under great pressure to remarry if they didn't want to. Pagan widows lost all control of their husband's estate when they remarried, but the church allowed widows to maintain their husband's estate. -Finally, Christians did not believe in cohabitation. If a Christian man wanted to live with a woman, he had to marry her, and this gave women far greater security. -In the ancient world, for example in classical Rome or Greece, infanticide was not only legal, it was applauded. Killing a Roman was murder, but it was commonly held in Rome that killing one's own children could be an act of beauty. Through a higher view of life, especially Christ's teaching on the value of children, it was the early Christian church that ultimately brought an end to infanticide. The modern pro-life movement is largely Christian. This pro-life view has been true from the very beginning of Christianity. As early as the 2nd century, Christians forbade abortion. -Missions and Charity: The ideas of compassionate mercy and charitable giving (America leads the world in compassionate assistance, even overseas, with no expectation of repayment), traditional marriage and family norms, as well as hospitals and education are rooted in Scripture and the influence of Christianity. -The core tenants of our government (Rule of Law, System of Checks and Balances, Fair Trials with Witness, etc.) also find their roots within Scripture and the influence of Christianity. -Without Christianity, the most amazing things in this world that we take for granted would maybe not exist- or would exist in different fashion. Christianity has changed life for so many in so many awesome ways, it has made life good for so many, but more importantly, without Christianity we would have no Christ and no life at all. -The amazing paradox of Christianity is this: the person behind the most influential movement in the history of the world only taught publicly for three years in a very remote corner of the known world. He didn't have any book deals. He didn't have any powerful religious or political machine behind him- He was opposed at every turn by the religious and political elites- and yet He is the central figure of human history. -No other god would ever do things the way that our God did them! -The message of Christmas is this: that God has sought you out and extended an invitation. God has searched from the moment sin separated you from Him for a way to draw you back across the chasm of sin and death. God has searched for a way to bring you back to life. God has done everything, even things that seem so amazingly crazy, to bring you back into His welcoming arms. All you have to do is to surrender to Him, acknowledge that He is much better suited to run things than you are, and accept His gift of salvation! The entire story comes down to that. -The Kingdom of God is waiting on us to help others along this journey of surrender. Who have you introduced to Jesus lately? Who is watching you- do they want to know Jesus because of what they see in you? How many invitations to salvation and reconciliation have you helped God hand-deliver lately? Closing & Invitation: The point of this coming Holy Day, Christmas, is not presents, not family time, not goodwill to your fellow man- those are all great things- but a message of the cross and the sacrifice Jesus paid to get us back into right relationship with the Father! As we talk about loving others this Advent season, remember that loving another really means caring about whether or not they will spend eternity separated from God and doing everything you can to rectify that fact! As you spend time with family this week, consider who at the table will sit with you around the table in eternity... will everyone at your table be there in eternity? If not, put down political talk, put down the pie, put away the presents- and extend this invitation of salvation to them. That's what Christmas is about. Merry Christmas!