God With Us

Matthew 1:18-25

Introduction

Everyone is excited when a baby is born. Grandparents are proud, parents are nervous and excited and everyone cheers at the beginning of new life. When our daughter was born we lived in The Pas and after she was born, I was walking down the hallway of the hospital and some people from our church saw me and said that just by the look on my face they could tell that it was good news.

One of the challenges which parents face at the birth of a child is the naming of that child. While mom is pregnant baby books are purchased and names are evaluated. The choosing of a name often takes a lot of time and negotiation. Parents have different reasons for choosing a name. Sometimes the baby is named because of family tradition. For example, those of you who follow NFL have heard about RG3 or Robert Griffin III. When he was named the choice was made to name him after his father and grandfather. For some people the way a name sounds is very important. We talked with someone this week about baby names and when we mentioned a baby’s first and second name they said, “That sounds good together.” Sometimes names are chosen because of the meaning of the name. When our children were born, it was important to me that their name have some faith based meaning, so Joel means “Jehovah is God,” Kristen means “Christ follower” and Jonathan means “gift of God.”

These days we are talking about the birth of someone who is very important to us. His birth was very exciting and full of significance. The names given to this child are also full of meaning. As we examine Matthew 1:18-25 we want to think about what these things mean for the world and for us. Let’s begin by reading this passage.

I.                A Baby is Born

A.               A Problem

Last weekend, my sister and her family were here for the engagement party of their adopted children whom they unofficially adopted a few years ago. There are three of them, a couple and the man’s 24 year old brother and they immigrated from Congo. The young man found a girl he wanted to marry who lives in Winnipeg and so they came from Edmonton to negotiate the dowry and then to celebrate the engagement. In summer they will be married in Edmonton. As they described, particularly the paying of the dowry to the bride’s family, I realized that the practices surrounding engagement and marriage are somewhat different than what we are used to.

The same would be true of the customs common in the Middle East at the time when the Bible was written. At that time, an engagement would be negotiated between the groom’s family and the bride’s family. After the engagement, there would be a period called the betrothal. During this time the couple would be considered so significantly promised to each other that a death of one of them would leave the other widowed. Yet they did not live together during this time. Then after about a year of betrothal, they would be married and come together as husband and wife.

During the time of betrothal of Joseph and Mary, Joseph discovered that Mary was pregnant. This was not good news. Anyone who would find out that she was pregnant would suspect that Joseph had made her pregnant. This would not have been morally acceptable in the community. Joseph, however, knew that he had not caused her to be pregnant. Therefore, the only explanation he had was that she had been unfaithful, which was the same as adultery because of the deep bond of the betrothal.

The text tells us that Joseph was a righteous man. What does a righteous man do when he finds out that his betrothed has been unfaithful to him? What does a righteous man do when the community suspects that he has had sex before the appropriate time? As a righteous man he had to distance himself from Mary so that everyone would know that he had not done it. It also would be just for him to allow the penalty for adultery to be carried out on Mary.

However, the text also tells us that he was “unwilling to expose her to public disgrace.” That would have been the righteous thing to do, but he also understood that it was harsh and so we see something else about Joseph and that is that he was gracious and compassionate. He obviously loved Mary and was kind enough not to want the full power of the law applied.

So Joseph was wrestling with this difficult situation. How could he do what was righteous and at the same time compassionate? The only solution he could think of was “to dismiss her quietly.” In that way he would maintain righteousness but also not expose her to the harsh penalties of the law.

B.               An Explanation

While he was thinking about these things an angel of the Lord came to him in a dream to explain the situation to him. The angel encouraged Joseph not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife. He explained that it was not some other man who had caused Mary to be pregnant, but that it was God Himself, through His Spirit who had caused Mary to conceive.

It says a lot about Joseph that he accepted this angelic message. He was a man who must have trusted God even though I suspect that he did not understand what all this meant. Yet we see that he did follow through on the explanation of the angel. He obeyed in several ways. He took her to be his wife. That means that if people found out the time between marriage and the child’s birth was too short, they would have assumed that Joseph had done it. In taking her as his wife, he was saying that he was willing to bear this potential accusation. He honored her further by taking her as his wife, thus likely shortening the period of betrothal and yet he did not have sex with her until after Jesus was born. It seems to me that to do this it took a man with compassion, self-discipline and one who honored both God and his wife. He also obeyed by naming the baby Jesus, just as the angel had told him to.

This is the story of the birth of Jesus as Matthew tells it. It presents significant information about the importance of His birth, but it is in the naming of the child that that meaning is explained.

II.             A Baby is Named

In this account of the birth of the child, two names are given to him. These two names are loaded with meaning about what Jesus came to be and do and it is worth our while to think about these names and their meaning.

A.               Jesus

The name Jesus was not an uncommon name among the Jews. It was the Greek form of the name Joshua which was quite common. The “Je” portion of the name refers to Jehovah and the “sus” portion of the name comes from the verb “to save.” So the name means God is salvation or God saves. The angel told Joseph to name the child Jesus and that the reason for this name was in accordance with the meaning of the name, “for he will save his people from their sins.”

The desire of the Jewish people of that time was for salvation, but it wasn’t necessarily salvation from their sins that they sought. They had a pretty good system in place to deal with their sins. The nation would meet together on Yom Kippur every year to offer a sacrifice for the sins of the nation and God had promised that if they did this they would be forgiven. In addition, any time anyone sinned, they could make a sacrifice in the temple and the promise of God was that their sins would be forgiven. Forgiveness of sins was not uppermost in the minds of most of them. What was uppermost in their minds was salvation from the oppression of foreign domination. The Romans had conquered the land and they were not nice. They mocked, they oppressed, they taxed and they contradicted their beliefs. The salvation the Jews were waiting for, after 500 or 600 years of oppression by various nations, was for salvation from oppression. They waited for Messiah to come and save His people from foreign rulers.

Is salvation from sins in our mind as we think about the name of Jesus who came “to save his people from their sins?” We also would like salvation from all kinds of things. We would like salvation from poverty, lack, oppression, injustice and broken relationships. But the message of the angel is that “…he will save his people from their sins.” Why do we need salvation from sins more than any other kind of salvation?

If we compare ourselves with one another we could easily get the idea that we don’t need salvation from sins. Everyone is like everyone else. Oh sure, there are a few people who are a lot worse and they need salvation from sins, but we ourselves are not really that bad. But is that an accurate understanding of things? When we compare ourselves with God or when we stop excusing all the little missed steps we take, we know that we do need salvation from sins.

We know that sins are in all of us. After a wonderful worship service in which we sense the holiness of God and rejoice in His goodness, we may well be motivated to commit ourselves to holy living and to pleasing the one whose love we have experienced. Yet most likely by the time we have gotten home we have sinned in some thought, word or deed.

We know that sins have power over us. We may be perfectly able to have victory over one area and we rejoice at the strength we have never to slander another or to lust. But what about the other areas? What about the gossip or the hatred which in spite of our best efforts still draw us into disobedience far too often?

And when our careless word or hateful deed is released, we watch as hearts are crushed or souls discouraged and we once again are made fully aware of the awful destructive power of sin.

Ultimately the destructive power of sin leads to death. Death is the punishment of God for sin, but it is also the final target of the trajectory of the destructive results of sin. When we contemplate sin like that, we know that we need salvation from sins – our own, our communities and our world’s sins.

            So the good news contained in the name of this child is good news indeed! Salvation from sin assumes that we share in the problem of a world in bondage to evil and redeems us from our contribution to it.

            The story of Jesus is the story of how that happened. Jesus came into this world to live as a human being. He lived all his life and never once did he give in to any of those destructive urges. He lived without sin. The relationship between sin and death is that of an equation. If you sin, you die. If you die, you must have sinned. If you don’t sin, you don’t die. If you don’t die, you must not have sinned. However, that equation breaks down when it comes to Jesus. He did not sin, but he died, How can that be? The only possible explanation is that He did not die for his own sins, but for the sins of every person on earth. He took the punishment for every one of us. The guilt of every sin we commit has been placed on Jesus. That is how Jesus saved us from our sins. He took the guilt of our sins and the punishment for our sins on Himself. Because He was raised from the dead, we know that God accepted His sacrifice and because of His resurrection, He also made it possible for us to live in a new way by the power of His Spirit instead of under the power of sin. That is how this child fulfilled the meaning of His name, Jesus.

B.               Emmanuel

The other name which we find is that given by the angel to Joseph, the name Emmanuel. The angel explained to Joseph that the name came in prophetic fulfillment. The prophecy was made in Isaiah 7:14 and originally referred to someone who was to be born in that day, but had already long been recognized as referring to the coming Messiah. Emmanuel, or Immanuel, either way is OK means “God with us.” The “imman” part means “with.” The “u” means us and the “el” part of the word means God, so “with us God.”

Although everyone understands that God is present everywhere, Emmanuel means something more than the omnipresence of God. The power of God’s presence with us is explained in the way in which Jesus came to be on earth. This is the mystery of what happened to Mary and what Joseph had to understand. Mary was a human girl. She was not immaculate, as some suggest, but was a normal human woman with normal human temptations and normal human failures. Being born of Mary, Jesus was completely a human being. That is the part of the story emphasized in the name “Emmanuel” which speaks of presence in the human family and in the world of human beings. What is really exciting about this name, however, is that it is God who is with us. The story tells us that Mary conceived without the help of any man. We don’t know exactly how this happened, whether the Holy Spirit caused the egg to be fertilized or whether the Holy Spirit placed a fertilized egg into the womb of Mary. With artificial insemination and test tube conception we don’t find this as difficult to understand as people might have at one time. These are also not the important things, but what is important is to understand that however it happened, through Mary and through the work of the Holy Spirit, God became a human being. God came among us in a way that He had never been among us before. The mystery of the birth of Jesus to Mary by the agency of the Holy Spirit gives us the wonder of incarnation, of God becoming flesh, of God coming among us.

What is the meaning of God with us? Philip Yancey has a wonderful chapter on this theme in his book, “The Jesus I Never Knew.” I have borrowed from his writing to help us think about the meaning of this name.

            Emmanuel means that we have a humble God. When foreign dignitaries come to visit our country, the cost can be huge. In 2010 Canada hosted the G8 and the G20 summit in Toronto. Before it even began, the cost for hosting this event was projected to be around $1.1 billion. About $160 million of that was for hospitality and much of the rest was for security. When God came to earth, he was born as a baby to a poor family in a feeding trough for animals. Yancey says, “The God who came to earth came not in a raging whirlwind nor in a devouring fire. Unimaginably, the Maker of all things shrank down, down, down, so small as to become an ovum…” Philippians 2:6-8, describes that humbling when it says, "…who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross." What are the implications of that humbling?

            God with us means that God is approachable. Yancey points out that “In most religious traditions, in fact, fear is the primary emotion when one approaches God.” Even in the Old Testament people approached God with fear. When Moses stood at the burning bush, he was told to remove his sandals because of the almighty presence of God. When Israel stood at the foot of the mountain, they were told not to touch the mountain because God was on the mountain and they could be struck down. When Uzzah reached out to touch the Ark he was killed immediately for his impiety. Yet a God who becomes human has changed the paradigm. No more is God distant, aloof, unapproachable and fearful. He has come to us and therefore, we can go to Him. Yancey says, “The God who created matter took shape within it, as an artist might become a spot on a painting or a playwright a character within his own play.” Therefore, “In Jesus, God found a way of relating to human beings that did not involve fear.”

            God with us means that God came into this world in order to defeat power and overcome authority but to do so through weakness. When Mary celebrated her pregnancy in the presence of Elizabeth we read in Luke 1 that she rejoiced that she was about to have a baby. But she also understood something of the unusual way in which God was going to work through Him. She understood that through the “lowliness of his servant,” “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” Through becoming Emmanuel, God came into the world to accomplish victory through weakness and this theme continues throughout the life of Jesus as he accomplished victory over sin, death and all powers by accepting death as his method of operating.

            Yancey tells the story of the fish he keeps in his aquarium. He cleans the water, cares for them and feeds them every day. Yet every time he comes near to them they respond with fear and swim quickly to the farthest corners of the aquarium. The only way to remove the fear and let them know that he is caring for them is to become a fish himself. That is what God has done.     

Conclusion

            Those of you on Facebook may have seen the post we put on this week. It explained the meaning of Christmas in this way, “God visited us. Later on we’ll be heading back to His place.” That is Christmas in a nutshell isn’t it? Emmanuel was the name of the child that told us that God visited us. Jesus was the name of the child that tells us our sins can be forgiven and because they are, we are able to go to God’s place.

            What a blessing! The wonder of this is that the birth of this child is not meant only to be celebrated, but to be received. I saw a rendition of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen this week. I liked the music, but the way in which it was done, it seemed as if those performing had no clue about the power of the words they sang. The song declares, “Remember, Christ, our Saviour was born on Christmas Day to save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray.” Such truth can not only be celebrated, but must be accepted, followed and lived. May Jesus, Emmanuel become more than just the reason for the season, but the reason why we wake up each day, the foundation of our daily plans, the confidence of our hope and the basis for our joy.

Here is Your God

 

Isaiah 35:1-10

Introduction

Last Sunday we had a true advent message in which Edgar reminded us that advent is a time of waiting. He pointed to Habakkuk 2:3, "For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay." That verse says, “For there is still a vision for the appointed time.” What is that vision? This morning we will look at Isaiah 35:1-10 which speaks about the vision and encourages us that what we are waiting for is worth waiting for.

            Have you ever been in a wilderness? Of course wilderness can mean many things. It can be a place so remote that hardly anyone goes there. It can be a place so harsh that nothing can live there. The imagery of wilderness speaks about emptiness, loss and lack. There are many kinds of wilderness places in our world.

            The Sahara desert is getting larger. It is expanding south into a region called the Sahel. The term for this is desertification, which does not mean that your dessert is gone, but that the desert is increasing. One website defines it as “a type of land degradation in which a relatively dry land region becomes increasingly arid, typically losing its bodies of water as well as vegetation and wildlife.”

The problem with desertification is that when desert areas increase, so do areas of poverty for the populations that live there. In 2007 Reuters reported that “About 1.2 billion people are at risk from desertification as deserts expand and degraded dry lands cover close to a third of the world's land surface area, the United Nations estimates.” This is a type of wilderness both in the devastation of the land and the devastation to human populations.

            But you don’t have to live in a desert to lack life’s basic necessities. 1 Timothy 6:8 says, "…but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these." But many people in the world don’t even have enough food or clothing. Among the poorest countries in the world are Chad, Haiti, Congo and Liberia where more than 75% of the people live on less than $2 a day. The degree of poverty in Canada may not be the same as that, but it’s devastating effects are.

            Yet abject poverty is not the only type of loss and lack. The Canadian Mental Health Association says that 20% of Canadians will experience a mental illness in their lifetime. At any given time 5-10% of Canadians are dealing with some form of depression or mental illness. And even that is not the only experience of loss. All of us will experience the debilitating effects of aging. We will experience loss of hearing, eyesight, motor function and possibly mental function.

            One of the greatest areas of wilderness in our world is the wilderness of living without God. At some time in our life most of us have questions about where God is. Some people go through their whole life not even aware that God loves them and they die without God and without hope.

It is in the context of such a broad understanding of wilderness that we are in a season of waiting.

I.                God has Promised Renewal

It is in that context that we read Isaiah 35 where God speaks directly to the problem of wilderness and promises the complete reversal of wilderness.

A.               Reclamation of Wilderness

The reversal spoken of here is reversal of desert areas and I think we should allow this to stand as a promise that physical desert areas will become verdant once again. There are three words for this area, including wilderness, dry land and desert. But the promise is that these arid areas will bloom once again. Flowers bloom in deserts only when there is water, which is a picture of hope in a dry land. When it rains, everything changes and that is the promise that comes to this wilderness area.

The text goes on to speak of the change that occurs when the lush forests of Lebanon take over the desert and when the beauty of Carmel and Sharon are given to that which was formerly desert. These are images which speak of the reversal of wilderness and dryness and the formation of beautiful places instead.

            Such images of physical renewal continue in verses 6 and 7. Streams in the desert are images of water in a place where there is usually not water. In addition we read that the “burning sand shall become a pool.” Jackals are mostly dry land animals but when this renewal comes, their desert landscape will become a place where there is lots of water. It also says that grasses which can survive on dry land will be replaced by the reeds and rushes which exist only in places where there is plenty of water. All of these images speak loudly proclaiming that there will be a complete change from wilderness and desert to lush growing landscape. Young says, “The waste world will become like an earthly paradise, for a whole reversal of conditions will set in.”

            Our physical world is broken. As a result of the brokenness of our physical world it is suffering. Romans 8:19 says, "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now…” This tells us that the physical world is broken because of our sin and we continue to cause the brokenness of the physical world by our abuse of it through pollution and exploitation. The promise of Isaiah 35 is that this condition of increasing wilderness will be completely reversed. God will come and make all things new. That is good news for all those who suffer from typhoons, blizzards, wild fires and desertification.

B.               Return of God

But the reversal of wilderness is not only of the physical desert areas. It is also announced as a reversal of the absence of God. God, of course, is not absent. But we do not see Him. Our sins have separated us from Him. Romans 1 talks about our refusal to acknowledge the evidence of His presence that is all around us. We cannot see Him because we are too full of rebellion and sin to see Him in His holiness.

Yet the promise of this passage is that all of this will be reversed. Verse 2 promises, “They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.”

So often we ask ourselves what the Psalmist declared in Psalm 42:2, 3, "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, ‘Where is your God?’” The promise of God’s presence is good news for those who ask this question.

C.               Recovery of Health

We also read about a complete reversal of all our health issues. The most common prayer request in almost every church is the request for healing. In verses 5, 6 we read that the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will leap and the speechless will sing. These are just representative of the good news that all health problems will be reversed.

This is good news for anyone who is suffering with any kind of health related pain or loss.

D.              Return to God

We have gone on canoe trips in which the first part of the journey is a divided highway, the next part a two lane highway, the third part a gravel road and the last part little more than a bush trail. The deeper one goes into wilderness, the more difficult the road becomes. Grogan says, “In ancient times men did not build roads across stretches of desert. Such an enterprise would have seemed economically stupid as well as involving a criminal waste of life.”

The last three verses in the text promise that in an area that was formerly a wilderness area there will be a road.

The implication is not only that the area will have become fertile, but that the road has a very important destination. It is a road that goes to the presence of God. It goes to Zion, which is imagery that comes from the Old Testament. Remember the hymn “We’re marching to Zion?” The imagery of marching to Zion comes from such texts as Psalm 50:2, "Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth." Zion is the place where God is. A road that leads to Zion is a road that goes to where God is. The description of the road is also appealing. It is road for those who are righteous and not for those who are unfit to meet God. It is a safe road because there won’t be “any ravenous beast” there. Written at a time when Israel was being sent away from Zion because of her sin, this is a promise of renewal, of return to God, of restoration of God’s reign, of the return of people who belong to God.

That is good news for all who are lost and for all who seek God.

 

E.               Restoration of Joy

One of the most powerful images in this scene of renewal is the presence of joy. Disappointment often tempers our joy. We would like to be really happy, but experience has taught us that disappointment will come soon enough and spoil our joy. So we don’t allow our joy to become too great because we don’t want to experience the disappointment that will surely follow.

There is no such tempering of joy in this passage. Joy permeates the whole passage and singing is abundant. The words glad, rejoice, joy, singing, everlasting joy and gladness appear without reserve in verses 1, 2, 6 & 10.

Jeremiah 20:18 expresses what is often the reality of our life when it says, "Why did I come forth from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?" In place of such sadness, this passage promises great and unhindered joy. It is good news to those who are filled with depression and sorrow.

What a wonderful expression of reversal. It gives us everything we have hoped for. Did you hear about the Westjet Christmas miracle? The unbelievable delight in the eyes of some of the people who received gifts unexpectedly was wonderful. What would we ask for if we knew we could ask for anything? How wonderful would it be to receive what we really need! That is what this passage promises. A reversal of all we need most. The fulfillment of that which we have given up hoping for. Reclamation of wilderness. Return of God. Recovery of health. Return to God and restoration of complete joy. 

II.             How is this Promise Fulfilled?

These are powerful promises, but how are they fulfilled and when?

A.               Where God Is

One of the messages which we see in this text is that these promises are fulfilled where God is. Verse 4 comes right to the point when it says, “Here is your God.” Young writes, “When God comes and saves his people then they will experience a great change.”

Who is God? God is creator, life giver, redeemer, Saviour, healer. God is love and has all power to accomplish His purposes. God is holy and just and does what is right. When we recognize and acknowledge who God is, we have the assurance that where God is, such reversal is possible. He has accomplished amazing reversals in history past. He delivered Noah through the flood. He saved an entire slave nation from Egypt. He delivered His people through the Red Sea. He made the sun stand still. God has done powerful deeds of reversal and so we are confident that the promises of renewal spoken of in this passage will happen where God is.

            Yet we wonder how will it come? God is able, but how will the renewal happen in history?

B.               When Jesus Came

Some of these promises of renewal are seen to be fulfilled when Jesus came the first time. The woman at the well experienced hope so unusual that she left her water jar behind and went to town and invited the towns people to meet Messiah. She experienced a renewal that caused her to forget about the necessity of life, water, and find real life. The woman at Simon’s house was so filled with joy because her sins were forgiven that she spent a fortune saying thank-you to Jesus. These are illustrations of the joy that came to those who experienced reversal of loss through Jesus.

Verses 5, 6 speak about renewal for those who are blind, deaf, lame and cannot speak. Jesus brought a reversal of these conditions as we read in Mark 8:25 of the man whose sight was restored; in Mark 7:35 of the man whose ears were opened; in Acts 3:8 of the lame man who was “leaping and praising God” and in Luke 1:64 of the one whose tongue was freed and who began to speak, praising God.

When we studied Mark a while ago, we saw not only that those who were physically deaf or blind were able to see and hear again. We also saw how the disciples, who were spiritually deaf and blind, began to have their ears and eyes opened.

Jesus was God present with us and so it is not surprising that when God came near in the person of Jesus these things began to happen. The renewal promised began to be fulfilled in the coming of Jesus.

C.               When Jesus Comes

And yet we still have wilderness in our world today. Jesus came to fulfill this promise of renewal, but the time for complete renewal has not yet come. Has the promise failed? Not at all. Its fulfillment comes in two stages. It is not an unusual thing in Scripture that a prophecy made in the Old Testament seems to be one promise, but its fulfillment happens in two events. The renewal which is promised happened not only when Jesus came the first time, but will be completely fulfilled when He comes the second time. God sees one promise, but fulfills the promise in two stages. This should encourage us because we have already seen the initial fulfillment. We have seen that God has brought renewal and so we can be encouraged that He will also bring the complete renewal spoken of in this passage.

The one thing that puzzles us in this passage is verse 4. There we are encouraged that the promised renewal comes when God comes, as we read, “Here is your God.” But then we read in verse 4, “He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” Some would like to remove the mention of vengeance because it seems to be so out of character for God. Yet how will the renewal come without the removal of all that works against it? How will peace come without the removal of those who would make war? How will the renewal of safety come without the removal of those who would do violence? How can we remove locks from our houses and security systems from our church without the removal of those who would break in and steal?

Exodus 34:6 proclaims a similar message. There we read about the love of God, but also about the justice of God when we read, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty…”

            Evil must be put out of the way. It is what spoils our world. The vengeance of God assures us that He will put evil out of the way to make room for the renewal which He will also bring.

Conclusion

Wilderness abounds in our world. The farmer in sub-Saharan Africa watching the mountain of sand encroach year by year on his small patch of farmland knows about wilderness. The drug addict who in spite of valiant efforts can’t seem to shake the habit knows about wilderness. The person suffering with chronic pain that sometimes is so painful that they cannot sleep, eat or do anything else but think of pain knows what wilderness means. The person who is all alone, having been abandoned by spouse and children for no apparent reason knows what wilderness is. The person who is overwhelmed by sin and crying out wondering where God is also understand wilderness. What is the wilderness in your life?

The message of this passage is a word of hope, to encourage the heart which experiences emptiness, loss and lack. It is a message to strengthen those for whom hope has almost been abandoned. We read this word in verses 3, 4, "Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.’ He will come … and save you.”

Last week Edgar told us that advent is a time of waiting. Even though we don’t want to wait and we move quickly to the celebration of Christmas without waiting, the truth is that even Christmas manifests evidence of wilderness. In it we celebrate the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s promise. But lack, loneliness and loss are also magnified at Christmas, so even though it is good to celebrate, we know that we are still in a time of waiting. For all those who wait for the removal of pain, recovery from illness, relief from loneliness, peace in relationships, replacement of what has been lost, this passage once again calls us to wait, but it does something more. It also assures us that it is worth waiting. The first coming of Jesus assures us that God is present and has already shown us what He will do in bringing about renewal. That gives us confidence about what God can do and what God will do. There is reason to wait and what we wait for is worth waiting for. The renewal that is coming will be so great that the images presented to us in Isaiah 35 will be fulfilled in ways that we cannot now imagine. We do not need to fear what is or what will be before the end because we know what will be at the end.

So as we celebrate advent and Christmas, let us do so with great joy because we know the hope to which we have been called and we have seen a glimpse of what will be.

Because of the hope of renewal, we can also work with enthusiasm. Shaking hands can’t do and shaking knees can’t stand. Fear prevents us from many activities. But when we know what will be, what God has in mind for us and our world. When we know that a complete renewal is being planned, we can work to proclaim the message of hope. We can working in accord with renewal. In God’s strength we can do His work as renewed people of God.

            May the message of renewal give courage, joy and peace to our hearts as we celebrate the first coming of Jesus and wait for His second coming.

Preparing for His Coming

Romans 13:11-14

Introduction

After prayer and thought BCL agreed that for the next year, the preaching should be planned by using the Biblical texts from the Revised Common Lectionary. The Revised Common Lectionary is a way of reading Scripture in worship services. It has been put together by a large group of churches. It is organized around the Christian year and guides us in celebrating the events of Jesus’ life. The Lectionary is organized in three year cycles and we will be following year one this year. After that we will evaluate to see if we will continue. Each week there are readings from the Old Testament, Psalms, the Gospels and from the rest of the New Testament. We will encourage whoever is preaching to choose one of the texts and we will read some of the others in the worship service. If you would like to read along, you can find the Lectionary on line or purchase a copy. The Lectionary begins on the first Sunday of Advent, which is today, so we will begin today.

Advent means coming. In this season, we think about the years during which people waited for the first coming of Messiah. There is a similarity in this time of waiting to our time. We also are waiting, now for the second coming of Messiah. The text we will look at today is Romans 13:11-14 which reminds us of the waiting period we are in. Let’s read it.

Last week we talked about the good news of salvation which God has given us in Christ. As we wait for the second coming of Christ, we wait as those who are His followers. We are people who have received the gospel and we look forward with anticipation to His coming. How do we live as people who have received the gospel while we wait for the coming of our Saviour?

I.                Know What Time It Is

As we wait, we need to know what time it is.

Whether you look at your wrist or at the clock on the wall or at your phone, there are occasions when we check the time in order to know how near we are to whatever we are waiting for. How the time seems to go by varies depending on what we are waiting for. If we are waiting for a dentist, 10 minutes seems like 1. If we are on vacation 1 minute seems like 10. What was it like to wait for Jesus before He was born?

The Old Testament contains many promises of the coming of Messiah. Isaiah 9:6 promises, “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” This and many other passages speak about the promises of His coming and so the people waited. I Enoch was a book written within 200 years before the birth of Jesus. It speaks of the hopes of the people that the Son of Man, the Elect One or the Messiah would soon come and so expresses the hopes the people had. In Luke 3:15, John the Baptist prepared the way for the coming of Jesus and there we also read of this expectation. It says, “…the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah…” For so many years the promise of His coming created a longing for His coming. The people waited and finally the day arrived and Jesus came into the world the first time.

In a similar way, we are waiting for Jesus to come again. Are we aware of the time that we are living in? Do we recognize that we are in a similar time of waiting? Does a similar longing fill our hearts?

In Romans 11:11, we read that “…salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers…” This statement is founded on the truth that we don’t know when Jesus is coming back. A strange thing happens to us in relationship to anticipation. When it is sunny, we anticipate that it will never rain and when it rains for a few days in a row, we anticipate that it will never be sunny again. In a similar way we live in the present time and we think that Jesus will never come back again, but that is not true. Jesus came the first time and there is a limited amount of time until He will come back again. When Paul wrote this, time had passed, which meant that they were closer to His coming than when they had first believed. Much time has passed since then and so today we are even closer.

What makes it so hard to remember that Jesus is coming back is that we live in the time of darkness. But Paul says, “…the night is far gone…” Since we are closer now than when we first believed, the time when night and darkness reign is getting shorter all the time. It is important to know that we are in the night because it explains why there is so much evil in the world and why people gladly choose evil. But to say that it is far gone also reminds us that that darkness is passing away. Darkness is not the eternal reality in God’s world. The time of darkness is almost gone and when Jesus returns, it will be removed completely.

            The other reality is that “…the day is near.” The term “the day” is used in the Bible to refer to the return of Jesus. For example, in I Thessalonians 5:2 we read, “For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” Jesus’ coming will happen any time and then the full light of God’s day will dawn on all who follow Him.

            We need to “know what time it is. We need to know that the night is almost gone and the day is getting closer. We can’t allow the human tendency to extrapolate the present into the future to influence us. We can’t allow the delay of Jesus to cause us to give up hope. Although sometimes all we see is the dark horizon, Paul is telling us that the eastern sky is getting lighter. The return of Jesus is imminent. We live by this hope not because of any signs we think we may see, but because God has promised that He will return and the time of His return is getting closer.

            When someone promises to come and pick us up at 7:00 we sit and wait for them to show up. When they don’t come on time, we may question their promise, their integrity or our understanding of the right time and location. We feel as if Jesus’ return has been delayed a long time, but we don’t need to engage in questioning His promise or His timing. God has told us that He will come and that coming could be any time.

When I was growing up, mom came into my room to wake me up in the morning. I have two memories of that time. One is the smell of Nivea cream, which she was putting on her hands. The other is having my toes pinched when I didn’t immediately get out of bed. When she came to wake me I understood two things. Sleeping time was over and it was time to get ready for the day.

This text functions like a wakeup call. As we wait for the coming of Jesus and as we become aware of what time it is, we must also understand that it is time to wake up. Night is for sleeping, and the day is for working. If this text functions as an alarm to wake us up to the reality that Jesus’ return is going to happen any time, we can’t hit the snooze button! Living as followers of Jesus means being aware of the time and ready for His return at any time.

II.             Lay Aside the Works of Darkness

One of the first things we might do when we wake up is to lay aside the clothing of the night. We take off our pajamas, we wash the sleep out of our eyes and we get rid of our “morning breath.” In a similar way, knowing that the day may soon be here means getting rid of the clothing of the night. Paul calls for followers of Jesus to “lay aside the works of darkness.” It is inappropriate for those who belong to the light to live in the darkness. It does not fit for a follower of Jesus to follow the path of sinfulness.

The text identifies 6 deeds of darkness in three pairs. Reveling refers to the kind of parties where self-control and appropriate behavior are thrown out of the window in favor of self-centered self-indulgence. It is often associated with drunkenness. The second pair addresses darkness in regards to our sexuality. God has declared His intention for our sexuality. It is that we should abstain from sexual intercourse until marriage and then be faithful to our spouse in marriage. This is God’s plan because sexual activity is intended by God to be the physical expression of the deep bond between a husband and wife.  NLT translates the third word “sexual promiscuity.” This warns us about the hurtful way in which sexual activity outside of marriage destroys relationships and is part of the darkness which we must avoid. The other part of the pair refers to the person who does shameful things and does not care who notices. It is the attitude of the absence of shame. The third pair warns about the terrible consequences when people fight with each other because they are jealous of each other. Dissension is the willingness to fight for what we want and often arises out of selfishness. Jealousy is the hatred of those who have what we want.

Many more deeds of darkness exist in the world around us and are tempting for us. Deeds of darkness, such as greed, conspicuous consumption, racism, bullying, abuse and many others, are not appropriate for those who live in the light.

In order to avoid these deeds of darkness we need a strategy to avoid them. In verse 14 we have some thoughts on that strategy. It says, “…make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” How do we do that?

The most dangerous position we can be in is to deny that we have a problem with our “flesh.” If we think that we have conquered sin in our life, we are more susceptible to it than ever. To make no provision for the flesh begins with the understanding that we are in danger, subject to temptation and susceptible to yielding to temptation. When we understand that, then we can begin to learn how we can “make no provision for the flesh.”

A good starting place is to covenant with ourselves that we don’t want sin in our life. Sometimes when we are faced with temptation, we resist it, but in the back of our mind, we may leave the door open to allowing it someday. If we are to make “no provision for the flesh” we must close the door to sin by making a covenant to avoid all sin.

This won’t, of course, guarantee that we won’t sin. In order to gain victory, we need to know when and how temptation comes into our life and have strategies in place for victory. Satan isn’t really all that clever and usually attacks us in pretty predictable ways. If we are aware of those ways, and have a plan to counter-attack temptation, then we can have victory over sin. Someone reminded me this week about Billy Graham’s strategy to avoid temptation. It was his rule in life never to be in a room alone with a woman. He even had a staff person assigned to make sure that that never happened. What a great way to make no provision for the flesh.

We are children of light and the deeds of darkness, which are all around us and even within us, do not fit with who we are. May we make every effort to lay them aside!

III.           Put On the Armor of Light

If we know what time it is, the text also calls us to “put on the armor of light.” This is an interesting term for it is military language. Why would it say “armor” of light? The use of this term reminds us that we are in a battle. It isn’t just a matter of darkness gently co-existing with light and the light gradually taking over the darkness. The darkness is opposed to the light and there is a war going on. The powers of darkness know that their days are numbered and they are seeking to drag as many as possible into the darkness before the day arrives. That is why it is not as simple as avoiding darkness and putting on light. We must battle to avoid darkness and we are in a battle to represent the light.

A great passage to help us think about the armor we need to put on is Ephesians 6:10-20. But I would like to stick to our text which invites us to put on the armor of “light.”

What is the armor of light? Satan uses the methods of darkness. He hides things and deceives. The armor of light is exactly the opposite. Jesus said in John 8:32, “…you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” God’s methods involve truth, transparency, openness and honesty. That is the armor of light. Another phrase in this text adds to this strategy when it says in verse 13, “…live honorably as in the day.” Last week one of the survey questions which CTV news asked was, “Are you concerned about government surveillance of your online activity.” I suspect there are aspects of that I have not thought about, but on one level, it seems to me that if we are living “honorably as in the day” then we have nothing to hide from the government or anyone else. When we live that way, we put on the armor of light. When we put on the armor of light, we gain victory because the enemy does not know how to handle the truth nor honorable living.

IV.           Put On the Lord Jesus Christ

As we wait for the day to come, we are also invited to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Salvation is about Jesus. Our sins are forgiven because of Jesus. We have eternal life because of Jesus. Therefore, it makes sense that we also live our life of faith in relationship with Jesus. When we become Christians, we receive Jesus and so put Him on. We also put on the Lord Jesus as we follow Him every day.

How do we put on the Lord Jesus Christ? We put on the Lord Jesus as we walk in His way and as we do the things He did. We put on the Lord Jesus as we walk in a daily relationship with Him. It isn’t about memorizing the things He did or about creating a list of Jesus deeds. It is about knowing Him as our companion and friend. We can live that way as we begin each day on our knees before Him. There we declare to Him, “You are my friend and companion through this day. I recognize your Lordship and I am on my knees to declare my submission to you.” As we come to the end of the day, we can put on the Lord Jesus Christ by looking back over the day and considering how it has gone. There is an ancient spiritual practice called “Examen” in which we discern the times during the day when we have experienced Consolation and also when we have experienced Desolation. Or another way of saying that is to think about when we have experienced the presence of God and when we have felt the absence of God. As we reflect on that, we process our day in the presence of God. As we do so, we can begin to understand ourselves and also how God is at work in our life. With these strategies we book end our days with Jesus and learn to remain in Him throughout the day.

Conclusion

During this advent season, we have an opportunity to think about what it meant to anticipate and wait for the coming of Jesus. In light of what we have just learned from Romans 13, we know that this is not just an exercise in historical reflection. It is an opportunity to think about what the coming of Christ means to us as we realize that we are also in a period of waiting for the second coming of Christ. The two comings are closely connected. They both contain an element of anticipation and waiting. Both comings focus on the Lord Jesus. What happened in the first coming prepares us for the second coming.

May we know the time and, while putting aside the deeds of darkness, may we put on the armor of light and walk with Jesus. May we wait with joy and faithfulness during this Advent and Christmas season!

Jesus Saves

John 3:13-21

Introduction

Although most people in church are followers of Jesus and the preaching that we hear is most often directed at helping people follow Jesus, once in a while it is good to proclaim the simple gospel message and that is what I would like to do today. Many of you have accepted this a long time ago and I hope as we review it that it will encourage you. There may be some here who have heard this message before and who may be very familiar with it, but have not fully embraced it. I would invite you today to consider accepting the good news of Jesus Christ. There may also be some here today for whom this is new information. I would invite you to listen with an ear to hear what God may be saying to you today. I speak from my heart today because Jesus is the one I love above all and He is the one who has given me life, peace for today and hope for all eternity.

It is not unusual to see John 3:16 in public places. I have seen it at golf games, on hats, bumper stickers and so on. I guess some people think is that if try to express the message of Jesus with one verse, this is probably one of the best. Although I am not sure quoting this reference is a very good witnessing tool because too many people in today’s world have no idea what it means, it is a very good verse for us to learn about the good news of Jesus Christ. So let’s take a careful look at it.

I.                God Loved and Gave

A.               God is Love

Jesus gave this message to Nicodemus who was a man who had a lot of religious knowledge, but not a lot of knowledge of God. The first thing that Jesus said was the good news is that “God so loved the world.” In saying this Jesus did not start with our need, or some desire that we have. His starting point is not a religious establishment or a human quest for God. The good news begins with God and not with God’s power or sovereignty, but it begins with God’s love. That tells us right from the start that whatever this good news will involve it comes from a place of love.

Why does God begin at the point of love? Because that is the nature of God. He is love. This means that love is at the core of every aspect of God’s being and every part of His interaction with people. God is a judge, but to know that He is judge and is love means that he is not judgmental. We associate being judgmental with making a judgment without knowing all the facts or assigning motives that may not be accurate. God’s judgment is accurate and fair because He is love. When He calls us sinners it is because we are sinners.

God is also all powerful, but because He is love it means that His power is not used to bully anyone. His power is used to create but also to punish all evil in a way that is right.

God knows all things, but He is not a know-it-all. His love means that His knowledge is used to bless and encourage and help.

God is sovereign over all things, but because He is love, it means that He is not controlling. That is the main reason why we have not been destroyed. The sovereign God has allowed us as human beings to make our own determination about what our life will be all about. He loves us enough to let us go and when we blow it badly, His love provides a way back.

That is what the love of God which initiates good news means. God understands us, since He created us and made us in His image. He cares about us and wants to help us. This love is the starting point of the good news of the gospel.

B.               God Gave His Son

If you love someone, how do you show that love to them? How is love communicated? Family therapists talk about the five love languages. Every person experiences love in different ways. Some feel loved primarily through words of affirmation others through acts of service, through gifts received, through quality time or through physical touch. Which of these communicates love most clearly to you?

God has used all of these to communicate His love to us through His Son. He prophesied the coming of Jesus to redeem His people and declared His love through those words of prophecy. Jesus came not to be served, but to serve. God came into this world in the person of His Son and was physically available to us. But the greatest way in which God demonstrated His love was through the gift of His Son who came to live among us, to die for us and to rise again for our salvation.

We notice that the text says that He gave His “only” Son. This tells us that the gift which God gave was one that was very precious to Him. It was a valuable gift given to us sacrificially. Included in the phrase, “He gave His only Son” is all that Jesus did. In this phrase we recognize that Jesus left the glories of heaven. He was willing to leave that wonderful place and come to this not so wonderful place. He left perfection to enter into the world of sin. He left a place of trust, love, holiness and beauty to live in a place of mistrust, hatred, sin and brokenness. He left being God to become a child and live a completely human life.

As a human, Jesus lived on earth and came to know all about what it means to be human. God’s love includes the willingness to identify with every aspect of the human condition with all its struggles, pains and temptations. He came to know all about us. Yet as a human being, He lived without ever giving in to the sin that has its hold on every human being. He lived without sin. Those who hated Him could not accept Him and so they sought to kill Him. They succeeded not because they were more powerful than He was, but because He permitted them to put Him to death. Yet because death is punishment for disobedience to God and since he had never been disobedient to God, the death He died, He died in our place. In verse 14, Jesus talks about the Son of Man being lifted up. He was talking about Himself and knew that He would be hung on a cross. This is what happened. That is where Jesus died, and although He died and was buried, He did not stay dead. Three days later, Jesus was raised from the dead and in doing so was victorious over sin and death.

The Bible speaks in many different ways about what Jesus accomplished on the cross. Each of them helps us understand a different aspect of the meaning of the good news.

Romans 1:16 says, “…the gospel…is the power of God for salvation…” Salvation means that we were headed for trouble. We were on our way to being destroyed, but God provided a way out of it. He saved us from destruction.

In Matthew 9:2, Jesus proclaimed to the man he was healing “Your sins are forgiven…” The good news is that the guilt and punishment which we feel in the presence of God because we are guilty and worthy of punishment is removed and we are guilty no more and we will not be punished for the things we have done wrong.

In I Corinthians 5:17 we read, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” Through Jesus, God has renewed us so that we become people capable of following Him and capable of walking in holiness and love.

There are many more ways we can describe what Jesus has done for us. What a gift of love which has been given to us in Jesus!

               The other thing that we notice about this gift is that it is given to the world. There is no one excluded from this gift. It is given to everyone. It was given to the Jews who lived in Jesus day and is given to the children of Africa who have not yet been born. It was given to the pagan tribes of Northern Europe who became Dutch Catholics and then Mennonites and is for each one of the multitudes of people in China. It was given to the followers of Muhammad in the Middle East and is for the Catholic Pope who was born in South America. What Jesus did is for everyone on this entire globe. Morris says, “It is a distinctively Christian idea that God’s love is wide enough to embrace all mankind.”

II.             So Believe in Him

Yet although Jesus has given this gift to everyone and it is for everyone, not everyone accepts it. Twice in this passage, we are told that it must be believed. In John 3:15 we ready, “whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.” In John 3:16 it says, “…everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

This is a key phrase. This gift must be received and it is received by belief in Jesus. What does it mean to believe in Jesus?

A.               Understanding Truth

Believing includes understanding certain truths. What is the truth we need to know? Do we have to know everything that a well-educated Bible teacher knows? Then this is not good news to most people who have never read all the books written about Jesus and have not studied theology! In verse 18, we have a summary of what needs to be believed. There we read that “those who do not believe are condemned already because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”  This tells us that belief must be belief in the name of Jesus the only Son of God. To believe this is to believe that Jesus is God who has come down to earth. Of course it is great to know much about Jesus and we can spend our life getting to know Him better, but what we must believe in order to believe in Him is that Jesus is God who came to earth.

This is the core belief because we must understand that Jesus is not just a moral teacher nor just a good moral influence in the world. He is God Himself who has come down and belief in Jesus begins with the recognition of that truth. And if we understand that truth, what does that mean?

B.               Accepting Jesus

To understand that truth means that we believe that God has come to earth for us and that we need Him in our life. The truth that Jesus is the Son of God who came from heaven to earth, must be personally embraced and accepted. Can we really say that we believe in Jesus if all we do is have an intellectual understanding of the truth that Jesus is the Son of God? There are many who recognize the truth about who Jesus is, but it does not impact their life in any way and they do not experience all of what God wants to do in their life because the truth about Jesus remains an abstract concept not a truth relevant to their own life.

To say we believe in Jesus must involve an understanding that He is God’s Son and that He has come into the world for us.

C.               Entering Relationship

When we accept that, it is clear that we must also enter into a relationship with Him. Believing in Jesus cannot be merely the understanding of an intellectual truth nor can it be merely receiving a gift from God. Believing in Jesus must also include inviting Jesus into our life. Believing in Jesus means that we accept Jesus not merely as a historical figure or as a God who is in heaven. It means accepting Him into our life as the one who has died in our place, who has forgiven our sins and has given us eternal life.

If we invite Jesus into our life we begin a relationship with Him and then we begin to truly understand what it means to believe in Him.

D.              Submitting to His Lordship

And if we do that, then we will also accept Him as Lord. To believe in Jesus means that we understand and submit to His Lordship in our life. It means that we understand that He is God and that He has given His life for us. It means knowing that what He has done, He has done for us. It means accepting Him into our life and it means that from that day on He is the Master of our life. If Jesus is God, which is the starting point of believing and if we have allowed Him to come into our life, then everything changes. Then the primary relationship in our life is a relationship with Jesus. Then we no longer live for ourselves, but we live for Him. Then we no longer follow our path, but rather the path He has set out for us

How many of us have stopped short of believing in Jesus. How many of us have acknowledged certain truths about Jesus, but have never recognized that those truths are meant for us personally? How many of us have recognized that those truths are for us personally, but have never allowed Jesus to enter into our lives? How many of us have allowed Jesus into our lives, but continue to fight His rule in our lives? To believe in Jesus is all of this - understanding the truth, accepting Jesus, entering into relationship with Him and submitting to His Lordship.

III.           And Receive Life

The verse concludes with two promises of what will happen if we believe in Him.

A.               You Will Not Perish

The promise is that those who believe “will not perish.”

Yet the first thing we wonder about is, “Why is Jesus talking about perishing?” If a young child makes a move to run out into traffic, the parent is terrified and quickly grabs the child. The parent knows that there is terrible danger, but the child is oblivious to the danger. Like that child, it may be that we are not aware of the mortal and eternal danger we are in. Verses 18-21 explain why we are in danger. There we are told that apart from Jesus we are under condemnation. We don’t have to do anything to “run out into traffic” because we are standing in the traffic already. Verse 18 says, “…those who do not believe are condemned already.”

How did we get under condemnation? We stand under condemnation because we have rejected God. The coming of Jesus revealed that rejection. Verse 19 says “people loved darkness rather than light.” When Jesus came into the world, He was absolute purity and perfection because there was no sin in Him at all. The brightness of his perfection revealed the sinfulness of everyone around Him. In Luke 5:8 Peter perceived that and said to Jesus, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” His perfection causes us to shy away from His light because we don’t want our sinfulness to be exposed. Who likes to be embarrassed with a revelation of the things they have done wrong? The sinfulness in us is revealed in our rejection of Jesus and in our self-centeredness when compared with His sinlessness and self-sacrifice. This is what it means when it says in verse 20, “all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light so that their deeds may not be exposed.” Because of that, we are all under condemnation. Matthew Henry says, “…they hate the light because it robs them of the good opinion they had of themselves.”

The problem is that we don’t realize this. I had worn glasses for many years and had not had them updated for some time. Then they broke and it was time to get new ones. I went to the optometrist and he tested my eyes and prescribed new glasses. After I picked them up, I was driving home and I looked at my fingers. I commented to Carla, “I have finger prints.” My old glasses had been so bad that I never noticed them until I looked through the new ones. If we look through the darkened eyes of our own life or even the eyes of those around us, we may not think that we are in darkness, but when our life is brought near to the life of Jesus, our sinfulness is revealed and we understand that we stand under condemnation.

Being under condemnation, we are subject to the punishment of death – physical death and eternal separation from God.

The blessed promise of this passage is that we will not perish. The death of Jesus on the cross is the basis of forgiveness for all our darkened thinking and living and is also the foundation for renewal that God gives to all who believe in Jesus so that the sin soaked life we had before can become a life of holiness when submitted to Jesus.

John 3:17 is the word of God’s love which shows us that God’s intention is not to condemn, but to give life and to save us from condemnation. When we realize that we are under God’s condemnation the good news of God is that He wants us to be saved.

B.               You Will Have Eternal Life

The other promise is that we are given eternal life. If we are no longer under condemnation, then we are worthy to have life forever in God’s presence. If condemnation is equal to separation from God, then the absence of condemnation is being in the presence of God.

This eternal life is something we “have” which means that it is not only something we will have, but something we have now already. Eternal life does not start after we die, but starts right now for all who are in Christ. If we are under condemnation, then physical death separates us further from God and from everyone else who lives on earth. If we have eternal life, death only separates us from those on earth, and only temporarily in regards to those who also belong to God. It does not separate us from God, but actually brings us closer to God. That is why eternal life begins now already. It is life with God now under His love and guidance that will never end.

Eternal life is life that will last forever, but it is also life that is like nothing we have ever experienced on earth. If some of the days we have here on earth would go on forever that would not be such good news. But eternal life is not only a quantity of life, but also a quality of life. It is all the best of life forever. There are some days when we say, “I wish this day could go on forever.” The quality of eternal life is that those days will go on forever. It will be life with God’s face always smiling down on us. It will be life without pain or sorrow or crying or guilt. It will be life in perfect relationship with everyone. It will be true blessing forever.

Conclusion

This verse is a great description of the good news God has for us. It is rooted in the love of God that has given us all we need. It is ours not because of our good deeds or supposed perfection, but because of belief in Jesus that fully embraces Him and submits to Him because what He gives us is a gift. It promises hope that is ours for today and for all eternity.

If you had gotten a trip to the Grey Cup – flights, hotels, good seats and all the food you want – you would not have as good a deal as this verse declares. If you were promised three wishes granted by a genie if you rub a magic lamp you would not have as great a blessing as God gives through Jesus. This is good news! This is the best news!

As we recognize this good news, we know that we must respond to it in some way. If you have already received Jesus, then this is an invitation to give thanks and to rejoice in the hope and blessing that is yours. It is also an invitation to declare this good news to others. If you have listened to the offer from God which is yours in Jesus, and have wondered about it and have been intrigued by it, but have delayed or have backed away from it, then this is an invitation to accept it and invite Jesus into your life. If you have never understood this good news before, then this is an invitation to acknowledge the gift for the first time and give your life to Jesus. I would encourage you not to delay, but to accept it today.

Following the service, if you would like to receive Jesus for the first time or renew you commitment to Him, there will be a few people in the front of the church who will be glad to talk to you and help you if you have any further questions. One thing I would encourage you to do and that is don’t make this decision and keep it secret. Satan would like nothing better than to have you keep it secret because that way he can tempt you to forget about it.

May the good news of Jesus lead all of us to fully accept the life God has given to us.