Tag: advent

2025 ADVENT WEEK 4: ALMOST THERE

On By Pastor TomIn Advent, Bible, Jesus, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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This is the final advent sermon of Wade Jones, friend to me (Tom) and to the Life Together Churches network.

We are almost there. And it is appropriate in this Advent season to take that expression several different ways. We are almost to that moment when we celebrate the birth of the Incarnate God in Jesus the Messiah. We are almost to that moment when He breaks into our lives to win a decisive victory. We are almost to that moment when He makes all creation new and right under His complete authority and the new life begins in all its fullness. We are almost there…but we are not there yet. And God uses this Advent season so richly in my life, and in our lives, to help us experience the tension that comes from living in a space where the light is always just beginning to dawn. The sun has not risen yet, but He is about to rise. And as certain as we are of the dawn that is coming, as much as we are able to see by the glow that is beginning to give light, we still live in a world with shadows and dimness. As the Apostle Paul says in First Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face.”

As I write this, Tom and Kari’s daughter Elise is back in the hospital, and she is struggling. By the time you read and discuss this, she may be back home and doing much better. That’s what I am praying for. We know that eventually she will be fully healed. That’s where our hope ultimately lives. But in the dimness now, we don’t know what the next days, weeks, and months hold. What a strange thing it is to live in the timelines of God, where our state a thousand years from now is in some ways more certain than our state tomorrow. And that is where we are. We wait for God to finish forever what He has begun in Jesus.

Once again, it is good to be with you at New Joy Fellowship and the other churches in Tom’s network. I am Wade Jones, a pastor at Priest Lake Christian Fellowship and part of the Hilperts’ extended family. And today we will engage the last Sunday of Advent together. It’s interesting to me the way I have bounced around the gospel of Matthew in this Advent season – beginning in chapter 24, then going back to chapter 3, forward again to chapter 11, and now, as Advent draws to a close, we go to almost the beginning of the gospel. We are going to skip reading the genealogy part, although there is much to learn from it. In fact, the Swiss reformer Zwingli said, “The Genealogy of Jesus, if understood correctly, contains the essential theology or the main message of the Reformation.” I won’t get into all that today, but I will point out that Matthew is grounding today’s passage in the history of Israel, beginning with Abraham, the father of the nation, going through David, the great king, to the lesser-known figures after the return from exile, and finally bringing us to Joseph, who is the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus the Messiah.

For Matthew, it is critical to situate the life and work of Jesus firmly in the history of God’s work through His people Israel. Jesus is not some sudden departure from what God has been doing for centuries; rather, He is the culmination of all that God has been doing from the very beginning.  We will talk about some of that as we go through this passage today. Let’s go to the text now. I am going to read from the Gospel of Matthew 1:18-25.

“18 The birth of Jesus Christ came about this way: After His mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. 19 So her husband Joseph, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her publicly, decided to divorce her secretly.

20 But after he had considered these things, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is by the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.”

22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 See, the virgin will become pregnant
and give birth to a son,
and they will name Him Immanuel,

which is translated “God is with us.”

24 When Joseph got up from sleeping, he did as the Lord’s angel had commanded him. He married her 25 but did not know her intimately until she gave birth to a son. And he named Him Jesus.”

After taking us through the genealogy, Matthew begins this passage with another Old Testament allusion. He chooses the Greek word genesis for the birth of Jesus. This is not an unusual word choice, to be sure, but for any Jewish readers it would immediately connect them to the very beginning of the story. “In the beginning…” from Genesis 1:1, and now a new genesis, a new beginning, a new entry of God into His creation is here. The echoes of Creation surround the Incarnation and birth of the Son of God.

Matthew tells us this story primarily through Joseph’s eyes. In most of our Christmas storybooks or plays, we combine Luke and Matthew’s information so that we don’t leave anything out, but today I want to pay attention to how Matthew, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has chosen to tell the story. Why does he share from Joseph’s perspective? I think he is being pretty intentional with this choice. And it connects to the genealogy he has just taken his readers through.

For us, as twenty-first century Gentile readers, the title “Son of David” is one we could acknowledge belongs to Jesus, but it’s one we don’t think about very much. In fact, at times, the Gentile church has tended to overlook (at best) the Jewish nature of our Messiah. We can forget that we are grafted into the root that God established in Israel, and sometimes that forgetting has had tragic consequences. But if when we read Matthew’s gospel, he is going to make it very clear that Jesus is the climax of a plan that God has been working on for generations, for centuries. And that plan is rooted in the children of Abraham.

For first-century Jews, the title “Son of David” was not an afterthought. It was a key component of their Messianic expectations. When the Messiah comes, He is going to be another David. And while Jesus will redirect some of those expectations, and outright refuse others, God’s people were right to expect King David’s successor to appear. Jesus is coming as the answer to hundreds of years of prayer and prophecy, which Matthew is going to repeatedly point out – including explicitly in this passage. So, it is important to Matthew and his readers to know that the lineage of Jesus through Joseph, who was His father legally if not biologically, can be traced back to David. Jesus is a descendant of the great king.

By pointing us to Joseph, Matthew may also be highlighting one of the aspects of response to God. In Luke’s gospel, Mary is more passive – she receives what God is doing in her and through her. In Matthew’s gospel, God acts, and His actions call for Joseph to take action in response.

(As an aside, neither of these are better or worse ways to respond. Both are appropriate ways that both men and women will respond to God at times. God is always the primary actor, but sometimes His actions call for us to wait patiently for Him to act, and sometimes His actions call for us to act in response. Matthew tends to emphasize the ways we can act in response – think about the judgment scene in Matthew 25, for example. We cannot act to deliver ourselves, but we can and do sometimes act in response to the deliverance that God has provided.)

So, who is this Joseph, besides a many-times-great-grandson of King David? Matthew describes him as a man who is righteous or just. That is, someone who is concerned with obedience to God. Don’t hear this in legalistic terms. Think about Psalm 119: the longest chapter in the Bible filled with 176 verses of inspired affirmation of the goodness of knowing what God wants from His children. Like the psalmist, Joseph knows that the way to a real life is through doing what God has asked us to do. And part of that is the sexual integrity He expects from His children.

Now, Joseph has found out that his fiancée is pregnant, and he is one of two people who can be absolutely certain that the baby is not his. At this point, he has the right to make this a scandal and make Mary pay for her betrayal, but, because he is a man who seeks the heart of God, he has decided not to make this any worse for her than it has to be. He is going to end the engagement quietly and let her go. (Many of you already know this: first-century Jewish culture took engagement very seriously. It was almost a marriage except that the bride and groom did not live together or have a sexual relationship until the wedding day. But in other ways, their commitment to each other was already considered to be in place. From all Joseph could have known, Mary had to have violated this covenant agreement – whether willingly or unwillingly — so he couldn’t, in good conscience, go forward with the marriage.)

Think about how painful this must have been for Joseph! We know how the story is going to develop, so it’s easy for us to just move right one from verse 18 to verse 20. But Joseph had to live in verses 18 and 19 for at least a little while. We don’t know how long. But even if it was just one afternoon, what a miserable, disappointing, heartbreaking afternoon that must have been for him. And Matthew doesn’t give us a calendar. This part of the hurt may have lasted for days or weeks before God tells him more of the story.

I want to sit with that thought for a moment. Joseph had done nothing wrong. He wasn’t jumping to any conclusions based on gossip. And the emotions he felt, the struggle he faced, was one I think many of us can identify with on at least some level. What do you do when it seems that a decision you thought you had made well, made prayerfully, made in line with God’s will, turns out to be something completely different than what you had expected? Yes, God is going to make it all right (at least as far as Joseph’s relationship with Mary). But that doesn’t negate the wrestling that Joseph had to do in the meantime, as he lived through verse 19.

And it’s likely that we are all going to spend significant parts of our lives in our own versions of verse 19. We’ve made thoughtful decisions. We have sought the will of God and wise counsel. We’ve prayed about it and set out on a course of action, confident that we are walking in the will of the God we honor. And then things take a turn. The business goes under. The friendship falls apart. The new house has black mold. And while we believe that God will always act to redeem, we don’t know what the timetable will be. How will we react in the meantime? As we wait through Advent, can we be okay as people who can still wait on God in trust when things appear to be falling apart?

Waiting doesn’t always mean passivity. Joseph is taking steps to deal with the crisis in his life, and he is trying to take them in ways that honor God. I find great comfort in this part of the story. When Joseph is about to miss what God is doing, even though he is trying to follow Him, God shows up. He doesn’t leave him hanging out there forever (maybe for a while – a painful while, but not forever). Instead, He shows up to Joseph with an angelic messenger in a dream – the first of three times that a messenger of God will appear to Joseph in a dream. And each time, God tells him to change course – to stop something he was planning to do or doing and begin to do something different. In a way, there is an echo here of what it will mean when John and then Jesus tell Israel to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It’s time to turn your head, change your direction, and go a different way so that you can participate fully in the surprising thing that your God is doing.

In this case, once he comes to terms with what God is telling him, I imagine this “repentance” would have been pleasant for Joseph. No, you don’t have to abandon this woman that you were planning to spend your life with. And no, she hasn’t been unfaithful to you. This is actually something that I have caused to happen. So, stop planning for the divorce, and resume your plans for the wedding and the marriage. You and Mary still have work to do together.

By the way, notice here that Matthew does not really try to explain or defend the birth of Jesus to a virgin mother. He, like Luke, just accepts it as something that is known by faithful believers to be true. The gospels give us hints that questions – and not polite ones – were asked about the circumstances of Jesus’ birth, and to an extent, the gospel writers are just setting the record straight. “This is what it was actually like.” No pagan mythological encounters. No detailed biological mechanics. Just a straightforward statement that God did this, and we accept it. Honestly, when we look at the rest of Jesus’ life, death, and finally resurrection, this is just one incredible part of a long miraculous story. And if our modern ears have trouble with it, that says more about us than it does about Jesus. If we are Christians, we believe in a God who does impossible things. The virgin birth is one of them.

Now, I do wonder if it was hard for Joseph to accept this at first. I mean, it does seem rather strange to us. But remember (and hear Matthew’s intended echoes here), this is not the first time that God has been involved in the conception of a child. Yes, this One is different. This One is unique – the unique Son of the Father who has existed together with Him and the Holy Spirit since well before the creation began. And also, this difference is in line with ways that God has acted throughout the history of His people. Joseph, as a righteous Jewish man, would have known that. Go back to the beginning of Israel, with Abram and Sarai (yes, before their names changed). God promised a son to a couple that was way too old to have a child. They struggled to believe it and even tried to find ways to help God with His plan (which was a terrible idea, as it generally is). But eventually, God gave Isaac. And He gave Samsom to Manoah and his anonymous wife. And He gave Samuel to Hannah and Elkanah. Does Joseph fully grasp the mystery that the Eternal God is already incarnate in his fiancée’s womb? I seriously doubt it. Does he know that he serves a God who has caused miraculous births before? Absolutely he does. And based on that knowledge of what God has done in the past, he is ready to accept that He is doing something similar now, and that God wants him – Joseph – to be a part of it.

So, Joseph acts. Now remember, his action is in response to God’s. Joseph doesn’t cause the Incarnation. Joseph doesn’t bring God to be Immanuel with His people, present with them as an embodied part of Israel. But he does have a part to play. And he does it. He puts down the idea of divorce and picks up his pregnant fiancée, along with the snide comments, and damage to his reputation, and possible loss of business that will come with it. He marries her and takes cold showers until the child is born. He accepts a burden that he can’t even imagine at this point, although it will start to become clear early on when he and his family have to flee the country. And in doing so, he becomes the man that will raise the Son of David and the Son of God.

Church, what surprising thing is God asking you to respond to in this Advent season? Oh, He isn’t going to ask any of us to raise His Son – that job only needed to be done once. But I assume that most everyone listening to or reading this message is trying to live a righteous and just life in response to the love of God shown to us in Christ Jesus. He has come, as this passage says, to save His people from their sins. And there are ways He would like us to respond to that. There are good works, as the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2:10, “which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” A lot of them are going to be like the life Joseph was living before the dream. We listen to the Word of God and do what He says. Love our neighbors and our enemies, put off anger and drunkenness and greed, put on humility and gentleness and peace. But sometimes – and maybe more often than we might expect – there will be something specific. Something unique. A work that God prepared ahead of time planning for you – no one else, you – to do.

That work may be like what He asked of Joseph. It may require you to lay aside legitimate emotional hurt. It may require you to ignore the way it will look to others. It may mean that you end up having to leave a relatively settled, comfortable life behind for a few years or longer. It might even mean you attract the unwanted attention of the wealthy and powerful when your obedience threatens the cultural or political narratives that serve their purposes.

Here’s what we know. If we listen to God, what He accomplishes in and through us will be good. Not necessarily my specific good – I’m not sure what Joseph personally got out of all this. But the good of His people. The good of His creation. The good of His purpose and plan to “gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth – in Him.” (Ephesians 1:10)

Jesus is coming. The new Creation is coming. The day of the Lord is coming. And if we listen to Him, if we respond to Him, if we lay aside our own agendas to agree with Him and live His way – we will rejoice when the sun finally does crest the top of the hill and we are fully immersed in the Light. Until then, we respond to Him and we wait.

ADVENT WEEK 2, 2025

On By Pastor TomIn Advent, Bible, Bible Teaching, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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I was very excited to do an Advent series this year. I had a pretty strong sense of what we might do. However, before I was putting the final touches on my first Advent sermon, we found out that my youngest daughter has a rare and very serious kind of bone cancer. I’ve spent most of the past two weeks sitting by her hospital bed, along with my wife, her siblings, and may friends. I would deeply appreciate your prayers for her.

My friend Wade Jones, who did the Serenity Prayer series for us, called and offered to share his own advent sermons, so that I can be with my family in all the ways I am needed. I am very grateful to Wade for helping us out.

Without further ado, here’s Wade:

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

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You can also find us on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/6KKzSHPFT466aXfNT2r9OD

(This will open to the latest sermon. You can search from there if you are looking for a previous one)

Matthew 3:1-12 – Advent Week Two
December 7, 2025

       This morning as I begin this sermon, I feel pretty significantly conflicted. On one hand, I am glad to be back with New Joy Fellowship and the churches in Tom’s network. And I always enjoy preaching during this season of Advent as we engage the coming of Christ (past, present and future). It is such a season of hope and joy and expectation. And at the same time, the reason I am preaching for a few weeks – the serious illness of Tom and Kari’s daughter Elise – is deeply painful. I feel an emotional tension between what I want Advent to be about, and what, this year, Advent is for the Hilpert family and all of us who love them.

       In some ways, this tension is inherent in Advent. Advent is full of God’s promises about what it means for Jesus to come as Messiah, and Advent takes place in the middle of a world in which those promises are not yet fully realized. And that isn’t really the main direction I’m going today, but it is impossible for me to start without acknowledging the truth of the pain that is an important part of our community here right now. So, I’m going to pray for Elise and her family and then move into today’s Advent message.

       Father, You love Elise and her family. You are able to heal. We have seen You heal. And we ask You to heal in ways that show Your Glory to the world and Your love to and for Elise. You tell us to ask You for what we need and desire, and so we ask for her complete healing. And even as we ask this, we also trust You to do what is good and right. Your will, not mine be done. In the name of Jesus our Deliverer, Amen.

       One of the most familiar figures of Advent is John the Baptist. Last of the great prophets of the Old Testament (I know Matthew is in the New Testament, but John really belongs to the stream before Jesus, not the one after). The one whose birth was announced to his priestly father in the temple and the announcement was so surprising that Zechariah’s reaction got him muted for months. The same child who leapt in his mother’s womb in recognition of the Messiah that Mary was carrying in her pregnancy. But all those stories come to us from Luke’s gospel, and we are reading today from Matthew’s. Since the Holy Spirit was at work on purpose in guiding each of those men in how they told the story of Jesus, let’s take a look at how Matthew is setting the stage for John the Baptist. What is he telling us about John’s role in announcing the coming of Jesus, the Advent of the promised Messiah?

       Matthew begins with a genealogy – not of John, of course, but of Jesus. And he tells us more about Joseph than Mary. An angel tells Joseph to stay with his pregnant fiancée. Magicians come from the East to visit and worship the baby after His birth. And then an angel appears again to Joseph warning him to run for Egypt because the local king, Herod, is trying to have the baby killed. Then Joseph has a third angelic dream telling him that Herod is dead, and they can come back home – but since Herod’s son is ruling Judea, they go north to Nazareth in Galilee instead.

Not a word about Zechariah, Elizabeth, or John yet. In fact, if I counted right, the personal name that is mentioned most often in the first two chapters of Matthew is actually Herod. More than Mary, more than Joseph, more than Jesus. I think that’s on purpose. Matthew is setting up the conflict between the heir of King David, the true Messiah, and the kingdom that Herod and those like him rule over. It’s in the middle of this conflict that we come to today’s passage: Matthew 3:1-12. Let’s read that together.

3 1In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
    make straight paths for him.’”

4 John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. 5 People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. 6 Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

11 “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with[c] the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Wow! John the Baptist hits the gospel of Matthew like a lightning bolt out of a clear blue sky. He just shows up. And he shows up dressed like Elijah, the Old Testament prophet who wore a garment made of hair and a leather belt around his waist (2 Kings 1:8). Now if Elijah is known for anything, it’s probably the conflicts he had with King Ahab and his wife, Jezebel: drought, famine, the epic divine battle with the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, the death sentence on Elijah’s head after that, and the confrontation over Naboth’s vineyard. Do you see what Matthew is setting up here? The parallels to John’s life and death? John is coming to denounce the way that God’s people have turned from their loyalty to Him. Oh, they don’t serve crude idols anymore (the exile pretty much broke that), but they are not wholeheartedly devoted to YHWH above all else and exclusive of all other priorities. They have their own agendas and aims. And all that means when God draws near, just as in the days of Elijah and Ahab, it’s going to create real issues for anyone who is trying to make the kingdom of this world work.

“In those days” … well, really, it’s been almost thirty years from chapter 2 to chapter 3. Jesus is now a grown man, although we don’t meet Him in today’s reading. We do hear about Him though. But that isn’t where John begins. And even the famous quote from Isaiah isn’t where John begins. The first words John the Baptist speaks here are these: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” There it is, right out in the open. The things Herod was afraid of when the Magi reported to him: another king is coming, and he is going to take your throne. In fact, the king is already here, although no one recognizes Him yet. Jesus will begin His public ministry in the next chapter. And here are the first words Jesus speaks when He begins to preach: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” (Matthew 4:17) He picks up where John left off when John got arrested.

What does it mean for us to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” Let me start by telling what John (and later Jesus) is not saying. He is not saying, “One day you will die, and when you do you will go to either heaven or hell, so you need to say the sinner’s prayer now so that you can go to heaven when you die instead of hell.” John (and Jesus) might agree with all of that, but that is not what either of them are proclaiming in their preaching. No, the coming kingdom that they are proclaiming is not “coming someday, maybe thousands of years from now.” It literally “has come near.” When Jesus shows up, YHWH is beginning to reclaim His rule over all the nations. And John is looking out at the children of Israel and recognizing that yet again, as has happened so many times in their history, the children of Israel are not ready for their God to show up. He is coming, and if Israel does not change, it’s going to be a disaster.

That’s why we get the quote from Isaiah: Prepare the way for the Lord! God is headed this way. His arrival is imminent. And I have just looked at the roads, and they are a mess. Is this really the way you want to welcome your God? N.T. Wright observes that by and large, most of the time we keep our houses relatively clean. But the standard for day-to-day clean that we live in suddenly feels insufficient when you hear a knock on the door and it is the king. (Or maybe your mother or grandmother has come for a surprise visit.) Things that are “good enough” for just us suddenly look like glaring problems in the light of an important and prestigious visitor who we’d really like to impress – and maybe one we’d like to ask for a favor.

That is a part of what John is saying to Israel. You think you are ready for God to show up. Why? Because you’re doing better than the nations around you? Because you Pharisees rigorously keep the Law and honor the Prophets (or at least you try to)? Because you Sadducees are maintaining the Temple and its sacrifices? Yes, do all those things – but you are settling for half-measures. The God who is coming to take up His throne among you is not looking for surface compliance, or trying to do enough to get by, or checking the right boxes. He is asking for – really, He is demanding – all of it! He is coming to rule, not only Israel, but the entire world system that has been in rebellion against Him. And you who should be ready for Him to do that think that what you are offering is good enough to get by! John is telling them that they are sadly mistaken. The God of Israel and of all creation will not be satisfied with anything less than all of it. And they have not given Him all of it.

They need to repent! Now, what are they repenting of? We tend to think of repentance in terms of particular sins. I told this lie. I said this word in anger. I had too much to drink. I took a second look at her because she was hot. I responded judgmentally to an action my neighbor took. John would agree with repenting of all those – but it goes deeper. It’s not the actions themselves. It’s the attitude of rebellion against God that they indicate. Those actions are just symptoms of the real problem. And the real problem often comes down to this: I don’t really want God to be King. At least, I don’t want Him to be King of all of it. And that’s not going to fixed by a plan to “stop cussing in 21 days.” It requires a deeper change; a change of identity.

Look at what John says to the religious leaders (both groups): Don’t count on being children of Abraham to save you from the consequences of your self-centered lives. What you have as Jews is not enough (of course, for pagan Gentiles the gap is even greater, but John is talking to Jews). Is the throne room vacant and ready for God to take His seat, or do you still think that you have a right to determine how and when that will happen? Do you have a God that needs to meet your conditions and satisfy your requirements so that you can let Him be in charge? If that’s where you are, Israel – and it is! – the ax and the fire are coming for you.

I want to take a breath here. Some of you might be hearing me say, “You have to have it all together or when God shows up, you are condemned.” Let me be clear. That’s why we need Jesus. That’s why He came to us through the incarnation, born of the virgin Mary, through a life as God fully in the flesh of a man. That’s why the suffering, the death, the burial, and the resurrection were all needed. Because we were never going to get it right. We had to have God visit us in the person of Jesus Christ to take our humanity and transform it into something that could bear the weight of the presence and the glory of God. And He has done that. What John’s baptism could not accomplish, our baptism into Jesus has. We are saved by grace, through trust in the person of Jesus Christ, not by anything we do or don’t do. And also…

Israel was saved by grace as well. The Exodus was grace. The times of deliverance through the judges were grace. The victory over the Philistines through Saul and David was grace. The return from exile was grace. But grace does demand a response. And the response is to let the Gracious Deliverer be king. To turn our back on Herod in all his forms and live in the kingdom of heaven that is already breaking into our lives.

Israel was about to miss it. Not all Israel. Peter, James, and John got it (eventually). Mary Magdalane and Mary (Jesus’ mother) and Salome got it (maybe a little more quickly). Paul got it, even if he had to be hit over the head with it. But in large part, Israel missed it. And the hellfire of Rome would rain down on them and they would be demolished as a nation and a people in ways that would take hundreds of years or more to recover from. What John saw coming, what Jesus saw coming, came to pass. The kingdom of heaven showed up, and the people of God were not ready for it. God Himself appeared, and His people didn’t recognize Him or respond to Him.

Brothers and sisters, Israel was not unique. And they certainly weren’t uniquely wrong. So now, as those who have been grafted into Israel, how do we respond differently? Certainly, the presence of the Holy Spirit in us helps. But I think we face some of the same challenges as Israel – and we could miss it too. So, what does it look like for us to “repent, because the kingdom of heaven is here.”

The kingdom of Herod (and those like him) is sneaky. Most of us aren’t in danger of falling into the obvious rebellions. But the Pharisees weren’t either. And yet, they could fall into the trap of deciding for God what His reign would look like. For one thing, they knew who belonged and who didn’t. There were “good people” and “bad people,” and God was for the “good people” and against the “bad people.” And then Jesus showed up and hung out with all the wrong people. People who could do nothing for Him. People who were broken, needy, and a mess. And He chose to welcome them into the kingdom while some of the “good people” stayed outside. Am I trying to tell God who does and doesn’t deserve His mercy, His time and attention? Then I need to repent, because the kingdom of heaven is here.

The Sadducees had a different route figured out. They knew how important the Temple worship was, and they were willing to work with the kingdoms of this world to keep things going at the temple. If giving in a little to Herod here and Pilate there meant they kept freedom to worship as God had commanded, wasn’t that a worthwhile trade? A few decades later Christians would face the question of offering a pinch of incense to the emperor to escape death. It seems like a small trade-off, doesn’t it? But God, the King of heaven, wants all of us – not some, or most, but all. Am I willing to give the kings of this world something, even something small, to make it easier for me to live the way I want to live? Where am I willing to collaborate with principalities or powers because “that’s just what you have to do to get by in this world”?

John is not concerned about getting by in this world. And he ends up dead. Jesus was not concerned about getting by in this world. And he ends up dead. Stephen, James, Peter, Polycarp, Justin, and centuries of faithful followers decided that they would live for and in the kingdom of heaven. And they ended up dead. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” isn’t a guarantee that you’ll die for your faith. In our context that seems unlikely at the moment. But I think it does guarantee that we will be uncomfortable. That as we live by the teachings of Jesus, we will seem ridiculous. That our abandonment of common sense for the Word of God will cost us in our jobs, our finances, our relationships. But the thing is, the kingdom of heaven really is here. Jesus really has already begun to reign. And we are called to be citizens of the kingdom of heaven forever, beginning now. May God help us by His Holy Spirit to do just that. Amen.

ADVENT #4. GET READY FOR THE GLORY OF THE LORD

On By Pastor TomIn Advent, Bible, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Isaiah promises that the glorious presence of the Lord is coming soon. The Lord will bring that glorious presence to your heart, if you will allow him. Isaiah shows us, in part, what this wonderful promise means, and how we can prepare for it.

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For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

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ADVENT #4. ISAIAH 40:1-5

Before we dive into the scripture for this time, I want you to read it devotionally. What I mean is, when you read it in a moment, don’t read on to my sermon. Don’t worry about the historical and cultural context just yet. Instead, simply read it as God’s words, spoken to you right now, for this moment. Ask God to speak to you, and then read. Picture God himself saying these words to you. Receive them as his message to you right now. Go ahead and do that, and then sit with that for a while before you read on.

​1 “Comfort, comfort My people,”
says your God.
2 “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and announce to her
that her time of forced labor is over,
her iniquity has been pardoned,
and she has received from the LORD’S hand
double for all her sins.”
3 A voice of one crying out:
Prepare the way of the LORD in the wilderness;
make a straight highway for our God in the desert.
4 Every valley will be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill will be leveled;
the uneven ground will become smooth
and the rough places, a plain.
5 And the glory of the LORD will appear,
and all humanity together will see it,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Isaiah 40:1-5

In a bible passage that is often read near Christmas time, the prophet Isaiah made a prophecy about something momentous that was going to happen. Some of his prophecy has already come true.

I have talked before about how biblical prophecy is multi-layered. It’s like looking at a mountain range on a clear day, from a distance. All of the mountains and ridges look like they are next to each other. However, as you get closer, it becomes obvious that some of the heights are closer to you, while others are actually many miles behind the first line of ridges and peaks. So a prophet speaks what the Lord has shown him. In biblical prophecy, particularly in the Old Testament, you often find prophecies that were fulfilled before Jesus right next to prophecies that Jesus himself fulfilled, and also next to prophecies about the end of the world. From a distance, they were all “sometime in the future.” But some have already come to pass, while others are still some way off. In addition, most biblical prophecy also contains some sort of message that was relevant even before the fulfillment of the prophetically predicted event.

With all that in mind, let’s consider Isaiah 40:1-5. Isaiah prophesied to the nation primarily during the reign of Hezekiah, King of Judah, from about 750 to 690 or so, BC. One of the many things he prophesied, was that the nation of Judah would be conquered by the Babylonians, and that many of the people would be taken away to Babylon as exiles. This was fulfilled in 587 BC, about 200 years after Isaiah’s time. Looking even further ahead, after his prophecies about the future exile, Isaiah goes on to prophesy about the return of the Jews from Babylon. This also happened, starting in the 520s BC. Isaiah 40 is basically the beginning of the section about that future return from future exile. And yet, at the same time, parts of this passage (and others in this section) are about the future coming of Jesus Christ to earth, which he did, as we know, roughly 2000 years ago, or, about 700 years after Isaiah prophesied. And finally, elements of these prophecies also refer to the time when Jesus Christ will return again, at the end of time.

Whew! If you wonder how one passage can contain all those elements, just don’t forget how those distant mountains look.

The essential message for those in the days of Isaiah, and later for those exiles who returned from Babylon, was this: God is bringing his glory back to his people. Even in the days of Isaiah, the nation of Israel had clearly become a second rate power. The magnificent days of David and Solomon were history. The one nation ruled by King David had long since been split into a Northern Kingdom (called “Israel”) and a southern Kingdom (called “Judah”). These two nations often fought each other. They were dominated by the powers around them – Syria, Assyria and Egypt (and later, Babylon). In fact, while Isaiah was still alive, the Northern Kingdom (Israel) was utterly destroyed by Assyria, and ceased to exist. The glory days were over. But Isaiah 40:5 says

“And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Something that was lost is going to be restored. Now, “Glory” in the Bible, isn’t just about victory and success and triumph. In fact, the key element to Biblical “glory” is the presence of God. Maybe another way to say Isaiah 40:5 would be this:

“God’s presence will once more be manifest among you. He will be with you in such a way that it is obvious to all people. God has promised it.”

Along with this idea of the return of God’s presence is the theme of deliverance. When we look at the context of the passage, clearly God is returning, and when he returns, he will bring deliverance. Salvation would be another word for it.

It is significant that the voice calls in the desert, and the rest of the passage refers to making a way in the wilderness. When we consider the context of exile in Babylon, it may help to know that caravans and armies from Babylon to Israel always traveled north, around the desert, west toward the Mediterranean Sea, and then south into Israel. This is because directly to the east of Israel it was a barren, desert wilderness. There wasn’t enough water to allow someone to cross that desert directly, so everyone followed a big, looping arch to the northwest, then southwest, then south. There was water on that route, but of course it made the journey significantly longer in time and distance. And yet Isaiah said that God was coming straight across the desert. This picture would have been surprising to Isaiah’s first audience. But it shows us two things: First, that when the Lord comes, there will be no more delay. He is coming by the shortest, straightest route. Second, God is not constrained by things that are obstacles to human beings. The normal route isn’t necessary, because God isn’t bound by the caravans routes and traditional paths of men.

This passage from Isaiah is used in all four gospels. Each of the gospel writers tell us that “the voice crying in the wilderness” was a prophecy about John the Baptist, who was sent to prepare the way of the Lord. It is probably no coincidence that John did most of his preaching out in the desert, directly east of most of Israel. John’s ministry took things one step beyond a return from exile. Once again, as a fulfillment of this passage, John was declaring that the presence of God would be manifest among his people. Certainly that promise was fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. God was present now in a way that went far beyond what the exiles could have imagined.

Each time, along with this promise of God’s manifest presence and his deliverance (in short, his glory), comes an admonition that we should “prepare the way.” I think this bears some looking at, and perhaps has some application for our own lives. One of the primary places where this passage can really be played out is in the human heart. God will come, someday, in the flesh once more and end this world. But he wants to come to you right now in your heart. And the best way for you to prepare for that “someday” is to let him in your heart today.

First, we need to be clear – we don’t “prepare” in order to get God to come be with us. He has already promised to come. His coming is not dependent on our preparation. He’s said, essentially, “I’m coming, whether you get ready or not – so get ready!” We can prepare by learning his word, by telling others about him, by discovering our gifts and using them for his Kingdom. But even more profound than that, this passage gives us a clue as to how to prepare. Isaiah says: “Make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.”

What he is getting at is this: we need to give God access. The image here is to let God come straight at your heart. Take out the twists and curves we put in to deceive others, ourselves, and even God. Let him get straight to the heart of the matter. I think the way to do this is to be honest with ourselves and with God about who we really are. Sometimes we might not be completely ready to be honest with other people as well. I’m convinced, however that once we make the way straight for God, once we give him unlimited access, we will experience His grace and love to such a degree that eventually we’ll be able to “be straight” with certain other people as well. Giving God clear access to your heart and life is simply a matter of saying “yes” to him. Doing that is the best way I know to receive him now into your life, and also to be prepared for when he comes back to put an end to this world.

Look at what else this passage has to say. God is coming. Give him access. And, “every valley shall be raised up.” Do you have any “valleys” in your life? Are there “low spots” – places where you are lacking or empty? I guess that’s a stupid question – of course there are. God says this. “I’m coming, give me access. And those low and empty spots, those places of weakness and hurt will be filled in. My presence is coming, and it will fill in all of your failings and inadequacies.”

Now for the final thought, which is perhaps not quite as comfortable: “every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain…” Are there any places in your life that “need to be leveled?” Any sins that stick out? Bad habits, pride, ambitions that have nothing to do with God? Get ready, because God’s got a big bulldozer. This isn’t entirely a negative thought. No doctor that I have ever heard of can remove a tumor from his or her own body. Sometimes we badly need and even want someone to bulldoze all the junk out of our lives that we can’t quite seem to handle ourselves.

This idea of the valleys being filled and the hills being leveled is really a sort of promise. The passage tells us to “prepare” by making the way straight. But then, when it talks about the valleys and hills, it says “they shall be…” in other words, it is something God will do for us.

God has promised to bring his manifest presence to his people – that includes us! Let’s give him access, and watch in wonder as he makes us more and more shaped to receive and reflect His glory.

ADVENT 2024 #2. AN ADVENT PRAYER

On By Pastor TomIn Advent, Podcast, psalms, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Join me this week in an approach that is different from my usual teaching. Let’s pray through Psalm 25 together.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

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Advent really has three main purposes. First, it helps us remember and celebrate how God came into the world as a human being, two thousand years ago. The church-term for this is “the Incarnation.” The second purpose of Advent is to help us look forward to the time when Jesus will return to the earth, bring history to its conclusion, and bring us into the New Creation. In fact, if you happen to come across this message during some other time of the year, it can still be relevant to you, because in a very real way, we are always living during advent. Since we are waiting for Jesus to return, every day and every year is, in a sense, during advent.

You might say the first purpose is about the past, and the second is about the future. But Advent is also about our present. Advent reminds us to receive Jesus into our daily lives, here and now.

Psalm 25 is one of the readings for the second Sunday in Advent this year (technically, it is part of the Sunday evening lectionary). Psalm 25 is really about the third purpose of Advent – receiving Jesus into our lives in the present. There are also themes in this psalm of waiting for God with anticipation.

Normally, I like to do what is called “expository preaching.” If you’ve heard two or more of my sermons, you’ve probably heard my expository preaching. It’s what I do about 90% of the time. This time, I feel like the Holy Spirit was asking me to step outside my comfort zone, and take a different approach. So, rather than my normal approach, I want to invite you to pray this psalm with me, and reflect upon it during this season of waiting and expectation. If you sometimes struggle to pray, I recommend praying with a psalm, like we are about to do here. If you struggle to come up with words, or know what to say when you pray, using scripture to pray could be very helpful. Since we are using the very words of the Bible, we can also know that our prayers are on track.

I encourage you to listen to the sermon this time, even if you normally read it. I’m not sure the written version captures this as well, although it may be better for some people.

I encourage you, after reading this message, to go back through the psalm yourself, and pray it your own way. Consider doing that two or three times this week as part of your prayer life.

​1 To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul.

Yes, Lord, I do!

2 O my God, in you I trust;

 let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me.

I trust you, Lord, but not as much as I should. Please help me to trust you more.
Lord, please protect my loved ones, and me, from the Evil One, and from all the forces of evil.

3 Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame;
they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

Thank you for this promise, Lord. Help me trust it, and cling to it.

4 Make me to know your ways, O LORD;
teach me your paths.
5 Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.

Lord, please increase my desire to know your ways. Let me live moment by moment in your truth. Give me patience to wait for you, and for your promises. I wait for your salvation to come to those I love who are not following you right now.

6 Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.

7 Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness, O LORD!

Even after receiving you, I continue to sin. I confess my self-centeredness, my pride, my gluttony. Please forgive me! I trust that you do so, not because I deserve it, but because of your goodness to me, and to the world, through Jesus.

8 Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
9 He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.

Help me Lord to be humble enough to be taught by you, and led by you. Help me to be humble even when I see others around me who are not, and who still seem to succeed. Teach me to live in your ways, day by day.

10 All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.
11 For your name’s sake, O LORD,
pardon my guilt, for it is great.

And thank you, Lord, that you forgive me because it is according to your nature. Your forgiveness is not contingent on me in any way. I praise you for that!

12 Who is the man who fears the LORD?
Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.
13 His soul shall abide in well-being,
and his offspring shall inherit the land.

Lord, do instruct me to choose the things that you choose. Please do let my soul abide in well-being. Help me to trust these promises even when I don’t see them.

14 The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him,
and he makes known to them his covenant.

Thank you, Lord! I receive this promise!

15 My eyes are ever toward the LORD,
for he will pluck my feet out of the net.

Lord, keep my eyes fixed on you.

16 Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.
17 The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
bring me out of my distresses.

Lord you know my troubles. My daily pain, my lack of self-discipline, my concern for my family, and the future. I lay all my troubles in front of you. Be gracious, O Lord!

18 Consider my affliction and my trouble,
and forgive all my sins.
19 Consider how many are my foes,
and with what violent hatred they hate me.
20 Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me!
Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.

Yes Lord! I agree with all of this, with your Word. Forgive me, deliver me, guard me. Do all those same things for my loved ones.

21 May integrity and uprightness preserve me,
for I wait for you.
22 Redeem Israel, O God,
out of all his troubles.

Thank you, Lord that your promises to Israel are also promises to all who trust in Jesus. Give us hope and patience as we wait for you this advent season. You see what a crazy and dangerous place the world is right now. Come soon, and redeem your people. Protect us as we wait. Let the uprightness and integrity of Jesus guard our hearts, minds, and bodies. AMEN.

ADVENT 2024 #1: WHAT HOPE IS THERE?

On By Pastor TomIn Advent, Bible, Bible Teaching, Jesus, Uncategorized1 Comment

Advent is a time when we remind ourselves that God is at work in human history. We reflect on what God has done in the past, and on his promises for our future. As we do these things, we can live with patience, and hopeful anticipation.

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ADVENT 2024 #1. 2 Peter 3:1-13

I grew up in a church that observed the “church year,” and the “lectionary.” Stick with me while I explain this a bit. Many centuries ago, one way that the medieval church sought to bring unity to congregations scattered around the world was to have all churches use the same set of readings from the Bible each day. These became known as “the lectionary.” As church became less central to the lives of most people, the readings were generally reduced to just the ones used each Sunday. The lectionary readings were organized around various “church seasons.” Even after the reformation, many protestant churches continued to use the church year.

There are some small variations, but in general the seasons are: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost and “after Pentecost,” (sometimes call “ordinary time”). Each season has a kind of “character” to it. For instance, Christmas is all about the birth of Jesus and the significance of His incarnation. Lent is a time many Christians use to reflect on the suffering of Jesus, and to engage in personal repentance. Easter is about the resurrection, and so on.

I want to emphasize that these church seasons are not given to us by the bible; they are traditions, and no true Christian would say that it is necessary to observe them in order to be a follower of Jesus. One of the negatives of the church year is that it means that huge portions of the bible will never be read in churches which strictly observe it, since those churches focus only on the lectionaries given for each season. Even so, I think we can benefit at times from the traditions associated with the church year.

For me particularly, Advent is one of the seasons that I find very helpful. Advent is the first season in the church year, so that means the church year begins at the end of November, or in early December. One reason I appreciate advent is because the readings serve to remind us that God is still pursuing his goals for human beings. Advent reminds us that history is not random (as atheists might say) nor is it just an endlessly repeating cycle (as Buddhist or Hindus might suggest, and as most ancient pagan religions believed). No, the Bible teaches us that history is going someplace, that it is being guided by God toward a goal, an endpoint. God is at work in the world.

I think advent is a particularly helpful season in our current cultural moment as well. Things seem to be changing rapidly, and generally not for the better. The effect of AI is uncertain, and is likely to shake things up. Presently there is a war in Ukraine, and another in Israel, and both of them seem to be teetering on the edge of engulfing other nations. The economy is pretty good – but only for those who own businesses or a lot of stocks. Most of us ordinary people are paying a lot more for basic necessities than a few years ago, and our incomes haven’t kept pace. Our politics appear to be broken—people seem to be no longer able to maintain friendships with those who think differently from them. Advent can help to reorient our thinking, to make sure that our trust is in the Lord and his promises, not in our circumstances.

We’ll kick off advent with the third chapter of 2 Peter. Things weren’t exactly wonderful when Peter wrote this letter, either. The emperor was Nero, who blamed the great fire of Rome on Christians, and instituted a great persecution, burning many Christians alive. Peter himself was executed by Nero probably less than six months after he wrote this letter.

When Peter wrote, the days when Jesus walked the earth were thirty years in the past. Jesus said he was coming back, but apparently nothing had changed, at least not for the better. Instead, things appeared to be getting worse. What was going on? Peter wrote his second letter to address those kinds of concerns. Our first advent reading comes from 2 Peter 3:1-13.

In the first chapter, Peter reminds us of the amazing promises we have through Jesus Christ, and how they are enough to supply us in this life as we wait for our eternal home. Next, he identifies false prophets and false teachers who are trying to lead Christians astray. He makes it clear that they will be judged by God. Then he says this:

1 This is my second letter to you, dear friends, and in both of them I have tried to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory. 2 I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles. (2 Peter 3:1-2, NLT).

This is a pretty good description of what Advent is all about. It is intended to stimulate our wholesome thinking, and to remind us of the Biblical prophecies, how they were fulfilled in the past, and what we can look forward to in the future.

 Peter writes that he wants to stir up his readers, to remind them of two things. In the first place, he wants to remind us of the teachings of the Old Testament prophets, and the teachings of Jesus through the apostles (in other words, the New Testament). These scriptures tell us that Jesus will return one day to bring an end to history as we know it, to destroy this present world, and then to remake it into a new creation. Jesus taught extensively about his own return in Matthew chapters 24-25. After speaking about it for a little while, he says:

36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. 37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. 42 Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. (Matthew 24:36-44, ESV)

History is neither meaningless, nor an endless cycle. The Lord is working in the world, and one day, his purposes will be complete, and then our history as fallen and sinful people will end, and a new history will begin.

Now, it often doesn’t feel like this is so. Instead, it feels like things are only getting worse. Peter, addresses this. Clearly drawing on the teaching of Jesus (above, from Matthew 24), Peter explains that though people believe nothing will ever change, they thought the same things in the days of Noah, and yet the flood did finally come.

The same was true about the first arrival of Jesus as a human. The prophecies about the messiah were spoken many, many centuries before Jesus actually came to earth. The people of Israel failed to recognize him when he did come, but the signs were all there. What Peter is saying is that we should live with an attitude of patient expectation. I want to consider both patience, and expectation.

We need patience because we mostly do not see how God is at work in the world, and things appear to be going on as they always have since the beginning of human civilization. Our technology is much better now than it was in the beginning, but our human nature shows no signs of improvement. We still murder each other, as Cain did to Abel at the dawn of human history. We still hate, still lust, still hoard our treasures selfishly, still get drunk and high, still manipulate and ruin one another. In fact the main change seems to be that with our advanced technology, we do all these things more frequently, and more efficiently: that is to say, we are becoming even more destructive.

Even so, we can have patience for two reasons: First: God’s timing is not our timing. For him, a thousand years might pass like a day; or maybe sometimes he can accomplish in just one day the work of a thousand years. Jesus will return in his own time, and we human beings are not given to know that time. So it could be another thousand years. It could also be tomorrow. Jesus himself made it clear that no one will know exactly when it will come. God doesn’t work like us. God has not forgotten us, nor is he moving too slowly. Just as he promised the messiah, and then sent the messiah, so too, he will send Jesus once more to lead us into the new creation.

The second reason we can have patience is that God’s apparent inaction is, in fact, an open door that allows more people to repent and turn to him. The delay in Jesus returning is so that the maximum number of people will receive salvation. Since it is out of love and goodness that God waits, we too can be patient, knowing that every moment allows more people to join us in the new creation.

Now, what about the expectation? We aren’t just waiting around patiently for nothing. There is an end goal, a hope for which we wait. Peter gives it to us succinctly:

But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness (2 Peter 3:13, NLT)

Peter makes it clear that the old world will be destroyed by fire. That’s part of what we hope for, because it means the end of sin and suffering. But it isn’t just an end that we hope for. After the end comes the real beginning. We will be given new immortal bodies which will inhabit a new, uncorrupted creation. The limitations that bother us in this life will not be present in the new one. We will begin new lives that are untouched by sorrow and suffering, lives that will last forever.

Even though our bodies are corrupted by sin, we can still experience some of God’s goodness and joy in this life. In the same way, even though we can appreciate the goodness and beauty of the earth right now, it, too, has been corrupted by sin. Both our bodies, and the earth, will be recreated new, without corruption, decay, sin or evil:

18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. 24 We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.) (Romans 8:18-25, NLT)

That is what we wait for with expectation. That is the promise of Second Advent – a Christmas present so amazing that the world itself groans in anticipation.

Peter tells us that our patience and our amazing hope should lead us to live in certain ways. He says that in anticipation of these promises we should live holy and righteous lives. Another way to say it might be this: we should begin living now the way we will live in the New Creation. Even now, we are citizens not of this earth, but of the one to come. So, live like it. If I am just a stranger on earth, just passing through, I don’t need to worry about getting everything I want here and now. The future is coming when my every desire will be fully satisfied directly in the presence of God. So, I can wait, and leave some desires unfulfilled now.

My friend Wade Jones has a great illustration of this kind of living. He and his wife were called, for a time, to be missionaries in Prague, Czechia. For a period of time they were still living in the United States, while they prepared for the move overseas. They started learning the Czech language, even while they were here. Czech wasn’t much use here, in America, but they were getting ready for their new home, so they learned it even though it didn’t benefit them immediately.

In the same way, as we learn to live like citizens of our eternal new home, some of the ways we live won’t make sense to people who live fully in this world. That’s OK. We have the patient expectation of an amazing hope, and the more we live like it now, the more real it becomes, and the more ready we will be when eventually we enter that hope.

ADVENT #1: HINTS FROM THE HEART ABOUT HEAVEN

On By Pastor TomIn Advent, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
Photo by Aaron Burden on Pexels.com

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Advent 2023 Week 1

This year for advent will do a short series by pastor Peter Churness, who serves in Gig Harbor, Washington. Peter is actually the founder of Life Together Churches (LTC). For the first couple years, Peter served as the primary leader of LTC, and I offered him support and encouragement, along with various resources that I had created. Then our roles reversed. Peter is a very dear friend, and a gifted teacher, and I’m looking forward to hearing his advent messages.

Peter doesn’t usually write out his sermons, so we do not have a text version to share, but he will be giving us some optional discussion questions. I’ll post those here, and you can consider those as you reflect on his message.

By the way, I do realize that we’re already in the second week of advent, but there is no law that requires us to adhere to the church season. It just worked out best to do it this way. Enjoy the message!

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Warm up Question:
Growing up (or even more recently) what was something that you had a hard 􀆟me wai􀆟ng for?
Discussion Questions

  1. Going into this series, what has been your view of heaven? How do you picture it?
  2. What ques􀆟ons do you have about heaven?
  3. What do you think about the idea that the New Earth is not a totally different place, but our present Earth made new again?
  4. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 speaks of the centrality of faith, hope and love. It’s maybe easy to see what Paul means by faith and love. What does he mean by hope?
  5. How is your hope these days?
  6. How can we pray for you?

ADVENT, WEEK 4: ZECHARIAH

On By Pastor TomIn Advent, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

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Advent #4:  Luke 1:5-25; 57-80

Bear with me a few moments while I explain what we call “The Church Year.” After Christianity became legal in the Roman empire, Christian churches began to have more contact with one another, and it wasn’t long before “the church” was also an institution with an organizational structure and a hierarchy. There were, of course, a lot of negatives about this. However, one of the positives was a sense of unity that extended among virtually all Christians. One way that unity was preserved was through having all churches reading the same scriptures as other churches each week; this later became known as “the lectionary.” The lectionary was organized around “church seasons.” There are some small variations, but in general the seasons are: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost and “after Pentecost,” (sometimes call “ordinary time”). Each season has a kind “character” to it. For instance, Christmas is all about the birth of Jesus and the significance of His incarnation. Lent is a time many Christians use to reflect on the suffering of Jesus, and to engage in personal repentance. Easter is about the resurrection, and so on.

I want to emphasize that these church seasons are not given to us by the bible; they are traditions, and no true Christian would say that it is necessary to observe them in order to be a follower of Jesus. One of the negatives of the church year is that it means that huge portions of the bible will never be read in churches which strictly observe it, since those churches focus only on the lectionaries given for each season. Even so, I think we can benefit at times from the traditions associated with the church year.

For me particularly, Advent is one of the seasons that I find very helpful. Advent actually marks the beginning of the church year, and starts four Sundays prior to Christmas. I sometimes use the season of Advent, with its traditional readings, to help me get the most out of what the rest of the world calls “the holiday season.”

The focus of Advent is helpful to me, because it takes my eyes off of the commercial aspects of Christmas and the holidays. It even takes me out of simply sentimentally reflecting on the birth of Jesus Christ. The theme and scriptures of Advent remind me that Jesus has promised to return. They encourage me to focus on what Jesus is still doing, and will do in the future. It keeps my hope focused on eternity, and my work focused on how God would use me here and now.

Now, I am going to go ahead and show the weakness of the church year by using some scripture that is not in any of the traditional Advent readings. I think, however, that these verses can help us get our focus in order for this season.

One of the overlooked figures surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ is the father of Jesus’ cousin John. John’s father was Zechariah, a priest. In the year when both Jesus and John were born, Zechariah was chosen for the rare honor of offering incense during the sacrifice. Priesthood was determined by birth – they had to be descended from the first priest, Aaron. Each priest served with others in his division for two weeks every year; Zechariah was in the division of Abijah. Duties were assigned by random lot. Jewish documents suggest that at that time, a priest would have such an honor only once in his entire lifetime, and many priests never had the chance. To be chosen for this duty would be the highlight of Zechariah’s life.

One interesting note is that from all this we might take a stab at finding out what time of year Jesus was actually born. Zechariah’s priestly division was the eighth out of twenty-four, and so we can estimate when he was serving at the temple. The Jewish new year varied a little bit each year (their calendar was based on the moon), but the best guess is that Zechariah encountered the angel sometime in May or June. Luke says “after those days,” Zechariah’s wife Elizabeth conceived John. Five months later, the angel visited Mary, and then Luke says “in those days” Mary came to Elizabeth’s house. So if Elizabeth conceived as soon as Zechariah went back home, and Mary went to their house immediately after hearing from the angel about her own conception, that would mean John was born in April of the following year, and Jesus in September. But we don’t know exactly how much “after those days” and “in those days” really means. If there was a lag time of just two months total in those two flexible periods, then Jesus was indeed born in December. The exact date of his birth doesn’t really matter, of course. I just think it is interesting, after all the years I’ve heard “Jesus wasn’t even born on Christmas” to find that the evidence shows it is quite possible, maybe even likely, that he was born, if not on December 25, sometime close to it. In fact, in the summer of 2022, I met a man whose Ph.D. thesis was to claim that the exact date of Jesus’ birth was December 25. He successfully defended the thesis, which means he has significant evidence in favor of it.

Back to Zechariah. The innermost part of the temple was called “the holy of holies,” or, “most holy place.” In it (originally, before they were lost) was the ark of the covenant, a pot of manna and the staff of Aaron. This was where the Hebrews believed that God’s presence remained. A thick curtain separated the “most holy place” from the “holy place.” In this second, larger space stood a table with bread, which was renewed every seven days. Also here was a seven branched golden lampstand (something like a Menorah) and finally, the altar of incense. Zechariah would have been accompanied into the Holy Place by two assistants carrying coals and incense, whom would withdraw and leave Zechariah alone in the sanctuary to complete the ceremony. Meanwhile, a large gathering was worshipping out in the courtyard, which means it may have been a Sabbath day.

Now, I want to set the stage a little bit. Zechariah and Elizabeth are described as “blameless.” I don’t think Luke means they never sinned, but rather, they conducted themselves in faith and integrity for their whole lives. This is significant when we learn that they don’t have any children. In the first chapter of Genesis, God blessed the first human beings and told them to “be fruitful and multiply.” For thousands of years, Jewish culture saw this as a sign that children are God’s blessing; they also believed that when people could not have children, it was because God was somehow displeased with them. Many people felt that such couples must have sinned in some way, so that God prevented them from having this blessing. It is true that Abraham and Sarah did not have children until old age, and Hannah, the mother of Samuel also was barren for a long time before Samuel. Even so, it is virtually certain that their childlessness was a source of very real emotional pain for Zechariah and Elizabeth. They must have wondered what they had done wrong. It is quite possible that others in their community thought that they had been particularly sinful, for God to withhold children from them. Zechariah and Elizabeth may even have felt angry with God – after all, they had lived in faith and integrity, but still, God withheld this blessing from them. By the time Zechariah was chosen to burn incense in the temple, both of them were obviously older than normal child-bearing age. In fact, a fair description of them would be “old.”

In temple alone, Zechariah would have been praying for the worshipers and for the nation of Israel. At this point, an angel appears to him. I think it is interesting to note that Luke records that it appears “to the right” of the altar of incense. There is nothing particularly significant about the position of the angel, and that reinforces the authenticity of this scripture. Luke is carefully recording a story that had been told and remembered in detail, even unimportant details. For me, it is one of those hundreds of little things that rings true in the biblical accounts of history.

As recorded elsewhere in scripture, the appearance of the angel was awe-inspiring, provoking a kind of fear. Like so many angels before, this one begins by saying: “Do not fear.” The angel goes on, telling Zechariah, “your prayer has been heard,” and then explaining that he is about to become a father. One thing that isn’t clear is what Zechariah’s prayer actually was. As a priest, it was his duty to pray for the people. He might also have been praying for himself and his wife. The fact is, God’s answer, foretold through the angel, addresses both Zechariah’s personal desires, and his prayers for people of God. On the personal level, Zechariah and Elizabeth are going to have the joy of parenthood. On the larger level, their child will be used by God to do significant spiritual things for the people of Israel. By the way, this follows a familiar pattern from the Old Testament. Sarah and Abraham longed for a child of their own, and in finally fulfilling their desires, God began the nation of Israel. Samson’s parents were also childless until an angel announced to his parents that he would be born; but Samson wasn’t just for his parents – he would also be used by God to deliver Israel. Hannah was full of grief because she could not have children, and finally God answered her prayers and gave her a child, Samuel. But Samuel was not just a blessing to his mother – he became one of the greatest prophet-leaders in history.

In light of all the people in Israel’s history who had famous babies after long barrenness, Zechariah’s response might seem surprising. He questions how it can happen, since both he and Elizabeth are getting along in years. But at another level, I think it is entirely understandable. First, there is the issue of age. In ancient Israel, older people were given respect, and yet, at another level no one expected much of them. Healthcare then was not anything like it is today, and people then could not expect to remain active as long as they do today. So, Zechariah knows that he is nearing the twilight of his life. Since that is the case, why would God possibly choose him, not only to be a father, but to be the father of someone that God was going to use in great ways? It just didn’t seem likely. In his response to the angel, he mentions Elizabeth. It is clear that he thinks of her in the same way as he thinks of himself: too old.

Second, and I am reading into the text a little bit here, I wonder if Zechariah, at some level, thought that God was being too good to him. Here he was, in the holy place of the temple, standing where very few Israelites would ever get to stand in their lifetimes. He is been blessed with this great honor, and now God is coming along saying “I’m going to bless you even more.” It just seemed too good to be true.

Third, in spite of the fact that in the past God granted previously barren women the ability to have children, he certainly did not do that for every barren woman in history. In addition, all of that happened a very long time before Zechariah was born. The latest incident that I mentioned above was that of Hannah and Samuel, and that occurred about 1000 years before Zechariah stood in the temple that day. In other words, though I’m sure Zechariah believed that God had done this sort of thing in the past, and he probably even believed that theoretically, God could do it now, it was a whole different thing to believe that God was actually going to do it now, and for him. I mean, I have a hard enough time believing that God will repeat miracles that I have seen with my own eyes in my own lifetime, so I can’t blame Zechariah for saying “How can I know this will happen?”

Now, I want us to see how God responds to Zachariah’s weakness. First, of course, Zechariah is rebuked for his lack of faith. Then, as now, the Lord is seeking people who will trust him wholeheartedly, and he makes it clear that Zachariah failed in this. This is an important message for us: all the Lord wants from us is trust. He wants us to trust his promises, to trust his goodness, to trust his word.

But I want us to see the incredible grace that God gives to this old man. First, we need to understand, it was not that Zachariah had no faith at all, but his faith was weak. I’m sure he wanted to believe it. He did not say “I don’t believe a word of it.” Instead, his question was: “how can I know for sure?” God’s response is both a rebuke for Zachariah’s failure to trust wholeheartedly and at the same time a gracious answer to Zachariah’s desire to know for sure that God was going to do this:

20Now listen! You will become silent and unable to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time.” (Luke 1:20, HCSB)

Do you see what is going on here? His lack of faith is both disciplined, and answered. The angel made it so he couldn’t talk. Certainly, this must have involved some hardship for Zachariah, but it was not, after all a very terrible thing, and it was temporary. I think most of us could learn a lot, and even perhaps find some unexpected peace, if we were forced into nine months of silence. [Spouses, insert your jokes at each other’s expense here] At the same time, the fact that he couldn’t talk would have been a constant reminder to him that the words of God were true and trustworthy. Even while disciplining Zachariah, God gave him the answer that he desired.

Afterwards, when the child was born Zachariah demonstrated his faith by naming him what the angel told him to name him. At this point, he was released from his silence. Luke records that Zachariah was filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to praise God. I think this is very important. When Zachariah was focused on what he wanted, and upon his own unworthiness and unfitness, his faith was weak. But now his focus is all on God; his focus is not on the gift of his son John, but on the giver of the gift: God himself. The words he spoke at this point have lived on for 2000 years in Luke’s gospel.

So, what is all this have to do with us? What would the Holy Spirit say to you through the Scriptures?

The first and most obvious one to me is that God can use anyone. Think about what God was doing at this point in history. He used an Emperor to take a census which ultimately caused the Messiah to be born in Bethlehem in fulfillment of prophecy. He used an unwed teenage girl to become the mother of his own Son. He used a humble carpenter to become the stepfather of the son of God. And he used an old man and an old woman who had already had a full and blessed life to bring even greater blessing into the world: John the Baptist, who in turn prepared the way for the Messiah.

Not too long ago, Yogi Berra, the famous baseball player, died. One of his famous sayings was: “It ain’t over till it’s over.” For a guy who said a lot of silly things, that one is very profound. If you are alive enough to read or listen to this sermon, it ain’t over for you, not yet. The Lord still wants to bless the world through you. Before you say, “But how can he possibly use me?” I want to remind you that that is more or less what Zachariah was asking. I’ll be honest: I don’t know how he will use every single person. However, I do have a suggestion: pray. Prayer, in and of itself, is a powerful force for God’s work in the world. When you pray, you invite God into the things you are praying for, and he shows up where he’s invited, and where he shows up, he does his work and accomplishes his purposes. When you pray you are partnering with God to release his power into the world. Every single one of us can pray, which means that God can use every single one of us in amazing ways. In addition, it was as Zachariah prayed that the Lord showed him what else he wanted to do in and through his life.

Another thing I get from the story of Zachariah is that God is good; so very, very good. Zachariah had already received the honor of burning incense in the holy place. He lived a long and full life. Then he was promised a son, and when he doubted the promise he was given a sign to show him that it was true, and to help his faith. This is one blessing after another heaped upon Zachariah and Elizabeth, even towards the end of a blessed life. This encourages me to trust the goodness of God.

Finally, Zachariah reminds me to focus more on the giver then on the gift. John was a tremendous gift for Zachariah and Elizabeth. But by the time he was born, Zachariah had learned that the greatest gift he would ever have was the grace and love of God, and nothing could ever take that away. I hope and pray that you and I can also have that same perspective.

As we consider that Jesus not only came 2000 years ago, but also promised to return, let’s try to learn from Zechariah. God is still working in the world. He wants to involve you in what he is doing, no matter how unqualified you might feel.

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you now.

ADVENT: PARABLE OF THE TEN BRIDESMAIDS

On By Pastor TomIn Advent, Bible Teaching, marriage, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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ADVENT WEEK THREE. MATTHEW 25:1-13

Advent is a time for preparation. The original “advent” was a time when many different prophecies were being fulfilled. Magi in Persia recognized an unusual configuration of stars, which signaled something portentous. Zechariah the Priest, and his wife Elizabeth, conceived a child, and Zechariah himself was struck dumb by a prophecy. Augustus Caesar got antsy about his empire, and called a census that made a descendant of King David return to his hometown of Bethlehem, along with his pregnant wife. When we read the New Testament narratives of Christmas, and the coming of the messiah, we get the sense that something big was coming, that the world was filled with anticipation.

In a sense, that was very true. But it seems clear that hardly anyone picked up on the fact that big events were brewing, that God was moving in history. No one recognized the Messiah when he came.

We recognize now that he came. We can trace back to the prophecies in Isaiah and from Moses and others, and we see how Jesus fulfilled them. But back then, very few people caught on. Jesus, while he was still on earth physically, promised that he would come back again some day. And he warned us that the day of his return will catch many people unprepared, just like the day of his birth. In the closing chapters of his book, the Apostle Matthew recorded some of the things Jesus said about his return. Today, we will look at one parable that Jesus used to describe this event. This is the parable of the ten bridesmaids in Matthew 25:1-13.

The setting is a Jewish wedding. In those days, in much of Israel, weddings were the most important social events, after religious festivals. A large proportion of the population lived in poverty, and even, at times, on the brink of starvation. Most people had to work hard from sunrise to sunset, but a wedding was a chance to relax and celebrate. The 10 young women that Jesus is talking about were part of the wedding procession (more on that in a minute). This was a rare moment in their lives when they got to dress up, relax and have fun, and eat as much delicious food as they liked. It would be bitterly disappointing for such girls to miss out on a wedding where they were part of the procession. In some ways, people back then would have viewed the chance to be in a wedding party the same way we view the Christmas holidays in America.

The “business” of the marriage – the ceremony, you might say – took place between the groom and the bride’s parents, some of it up to a year before the marriage was consummated. When this year was concluded, the celebration began with the procession of the bridegroom, usually after nightfall. The bridegroom would travel from his house to a place where he met up with the attendants of the bride (these are the ten young women in the parable).

This procession of the bridegroom was a key part of ancient Jewish weddings. After meeting the attendants/bridesmaids, he and his friends, and the attendants all paraded through town to the place where his bride waited, and then they all paraded to his home, and to the feast! During the parade there was laughing, joking, singing, and the joy of much food and fun to come. This procession took place after dark. Anyone who was part of the wedding would be expected to carry lights to add to the joy and festivity of the procession. If someone was out on the streets without a light, they would rightly be considered a stranger, someone who was not part of the wedding.

People in those days did not have watches or clocks, so time was a pretty fluid thing. As the bridegroom progressed through the streets of the town to the starting point of the procession, he might pause to greet friends and family, or stop off at various houses to receive blessings and gifts from various people. Therefore, no one knew exactly when a given bridegroom would arrive, and when the procession with the bride (and afterwards, the feast) would begin. The bridesmaids waiting to meet them would have to be ready, because no one knew exactly when he would come.

In the parable, some of the bridesmaids were not prepared to wait for very long: they did not have enough oil to keep their lamps burning for a long period of time. Without lights, they would be considered strangers, and not accepted in the wedding party. Because they were not prepared, they had to leave to get more oil for their lamps, and when they got back they found out that they had missed out, the gates were closed and they would not get to participate in the wedding feast. There would be no leisure, no celebration, no joy, no good food. It’s hard to emphasize how deeply disappointed these girls would be.

I want to point out a few things about this parable.

First, there seems to me to be a strong correlation between “oil” and the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, Kings and Priests were anointed with oil, to signify the Spirit of God. In fact, the word “anointed” came to signify “filled with the Holy Spirit.” I think Jesus was deliberate about choosing a story in which the presence of oil was the key point; and I think he did so because one of his main teachings here is about the Holy Spirit.

The message here is simple, but profound: You can’t get by on a one-time experience with God. Sooner or later, you’ll run out of spiritual fuel, and you could end up missing the wedding feast. You need an ongoing habit of receiving from the Spirit of God.

There are times when we experience a spiritual high, or when things just seem to be going well all around, without a ton of effort. Those times are wonderful, exciting and fun. But we can’t live off of that kind of emotion forever. And it is exhausting to try to artificially generate new excitement to keep us going. We reach the point where the rubber meets the road. We need to live what we know, day by day. Sometimes the daily grind gets ordinary and boring, but it is where life is lived. To make it through that time, we need enough oil for our lamps – in fact, we need the Holy Spirit. If we hang around until the excitement fades, and then go look for more excitement somewhere else, we are acting like the five foolish bridesmaids. While they were out looking for something they had run out of, the wedding procession began, and they were left out of the feast.

Clearly, according to this parable, one experience with God is not enough. Ephesians 5:18 tells us to “keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit.” The apostles in Acts experienced a filling of the Holy Spirit over and over. So how do you get your lamp refilled?

I don’t know.

Well of course, there are basics, things I’ve been talking about for years now. First, we need to read our bibles. We might not always feel a great deal every time we do, but it’s hard to be filled with the Spirit of God if we are not somehow regularly reading or hearing the Bible. In fact, I would say it is impossible. It’s like eating. We don’t remember every single meal we’ve had, but the food we eat nourishes us, even if it’s not our favorite dish. So the Bible nourishes our soul, even when we are unaware of it. Second, we need to be engaged in community with other Christians. God designed us, and the spiritual life, such that this, too, is absolutely necessary. Third, we need to pray. By “pray” I mean, we need open and ongoing communication between God and us.

Now, beyond those three basics, I think different people get refilled by God through different means. I can get refilled by reading a really good Christian book – something like “Desiring God” by John Piper, or “All Things New,” by John Eldredge, or “Abide in Christ” by Andrew Murray. I can also be filled with a good book, even if it is not explicitly Christian. I’m thinking here of excellent fiction like Lord of the Rings, or The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. Even Earnest Hemmingway’s books have a way of helping me see my desperate need for God. I have found that the Lord often refills me through music – both Christian music, and also “secular” music that has depth and heart to it. I get refilled by being in nature.

As I said before, God designed us to be filled, at least in part, by being in community with other Christians, and by worshipping together. Some get filled by the Spirit through times of concentrated prayer alone, or with others. Maybe you get refilled by listening to the Bible on audio, or listening to sermons on the TV, radio, the Internet, or at church. I am positive that if you ask God how he wants to replenish your oil, he will tell you, and make it available to you. Ask him, and then watch for his answer.

Here’s something else from this parable: No one else can be filled on your behalf. Remember that the 5 wise bridesmaids did not have enough oil to spare for the 5 foolish ones? Jesus included that detail in order to illustrate this point. You have to take responsibility for yourself to get the oil you need on an ongoing basis. No one else can do it for you, any more than they can eat a meal to satisfy your hunger.

I think this parable is told, in part for people who think, “I’ll wait until the end of my life is closer,” or “I’ll get right with God someday – just not right now.” You never know when Jesus is coming, and it will be too late to get your spiritual affairs in order once he is here. Jesus is telling us to be prepared, now and always.

Also, part of being prepared includes being ready for it to take a long time. The five foolish virgins were ready at first, but they weren’t in it for the long haul. If the Christian life is a race, it is a marathon, not a sprint. Sometimes life can feel long and difficult – part of being ready for Jesus is about being able to endure through those times.

The time to replenish your oil is now. One of Jesus stated points is: “Therefore be alert because you do not know either the day or the hour.” Don’t think, “well, I’ll deal with my spiritual issues after Christmas.” Christmas might not come this year. Jesus may come back first. Even if he doesn’t, any person could die at any moment in an accident. Refilling your oil – getting refilled by the Holy Spirit – needs to be a priority.

Finally (and this is my favorite part of this parable), before this, Jesus has been telling us to be prepared in order to avoid the negative consequences. This parable, however, paints his return in a positive light. This is something we won’t want to miss out on. There will be joy, and laughter, and feasting and celebrating. It is like a long awaited vacation. This is something we should be looking forward to, something we will want to be a part of. A wedding, for most of Jesus’ listeners, would have been one of the most fun, satisfying and joyful events that they could look forward to. Heaven should be that for us – only not “one of” the best things to look forward to, but rather “the very best thing” we have to anticipate.

ADVENT #4: SECOND CHRISTMAS

On By Pastor TomIn Advent, Christianity, Christmas, House Church, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Enjoy Christmas this year.  But keep your eyes on the real promise – the Second Christmas, the return of the One who came the first time as a little baby. The promise of second Christmas can sustain us and help us to be at peace and gracious to others, because we can trust the one who made the promise.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button: To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Advent Week 4

2 Peter 3:1-18.  Advent Week 4, 2020

Remember when you were a kid, and it seemed like Christmas would never come?  I sometimes enjoy the movie A Christmas Story.  It really captures the combination of yearning, excitement and apprehension that some children feel about the holiday.  In that movie, Ralph, a young boy, desperately wants a BB gun.  He needs it.  His heart will not be at peace until he possesses it.  Throughout the whole movie he is aching for Christmas to come, but also a bit fearful that he’ll be disappointed. 

As I have pointed out during the past few weeks, Jesus also promised us a “second Christmas.”  He said he would return some day.  In some ways, I think we look at the return of Jesus the same way Ralph in A Christmas Story looks at Christmas.  We want the gifts we might get:  eternal life, an end to sorrow and suffering, being reunited with those we loved and have lost.  Revelation 21:1-5 puts it like this:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.  3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

That sounds exciting.  That sounds like a present we could really look forward to.  In fact, in my better moments, I yearn for this.  I know my soul won’t be at rest until I receive it.

But at the same time, we have a certain amount of apprehension about second Christmas.  What if, when it comes, we are disappointed?  What if Jesus was just messing with us when he promised to take us to be with him (John 14:1-6)?  I think our fears about his return fall into a few different categories.  I fear that won’t enjoy the time leading up to it.  The holidays between Thanksgiving and Christmas can get hectic and stressful.  In the same way, the Bible indicates that the time before Jesus returns will be stressful.

Another thing we tend to worry about it, is this:  will heaven really be all it cracked up to be?  I mean, I might get bored, singing in the choir, after a thousand years or so.  Is our “second Christmas” present really as good as we think it is?

Finally, I think some us worry about this:  will we really get the present we want?  Or will we be left out?  Jesus promised, but what could be taking him so long?  Is the promise really for me?  Is he even coming back at all?

The apostle Peter, in his second general letter to Christians, addressed some of these issues in 2 Peter 3:1-18.  When Jesus first promised to come back, the apostles and the early church expected him within their lifetimes.  No one ever dreamed he would wait for 2,000 years or more.  So many Christians had begun to doubt, or at least wonder, about this promise.  They were excited, but also worried.  Here are several points from what Peter writes, that might help us as we look forward to the second Christmas.

1.  Second Christmas (the return of Jesus) is going to come.  Scoffers are mocking the promise of Jesus, saying he is never really going to come back.  But Peter reminds us that God is not bound by the same rules of time that bind us.  A thousand years might be like a day to the Lord, or vice versa.  If that is the case, the church of Jesus Christ has only been waiting two days for him to return.  It seems like forever – just like Christmas seemed forever away when you were a kid – but it is not forever.  God doesn’t count time the same way we do, just like adults see time differently than kids.  But he has not forgotten or changed his promise.  He will come back. The time-delay is because of God’s mercy and grace (2 Peter 3:9 & 15).  He doesn’t want anyone to miss out on a chance to receive the incredible gifts he is bringing.  So he is giving the world a chance to repent of sins and self-centeredness, and receive him.  We may be apprehensive, but we are dealing with a loving and gracious God.

2. It really will be good. In fact, it will be better than we can fully understand. This world is full of things that disappoint us. Remember that Christmas present you yearned for as a kid? How much joy does it bring you on a day-to-day basis today? By the time we are adults, if we are wise, we have learned that lasting joy does not come from temporary things. However, heaven is the opposite of temporary. We are promised eternal life, eternal joy. C.S. Lewis, among several other great Christian writers, suggests that our deepest desires are signals to us of what will be fulfilled in heaven:

Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object.

Heaven is not a place where we wear robes and sing in a choir all day. It is the place where our entire purpose for existence is consummated. Our deepest desires are mere echoes of the great Reality that awaits us on the other side of time. Let me give you a specific and surprising example: A lot of people wonder if there will be sex in heaven. The  biblical picture we have is unclear. But what is quite clear to me is that the joy and pleasure and intimacy with another person that we want to experience through sex is a pale, weak shadow compared to the stunning fulfilment we will find in heaven. The kinds of questions we raise about heaven are like a little child who is on his way to visit his grandparents, and wants to know if he will still be able to talk to them on the phone when he gets there. We are promised that it is better than we can ask or imagine. C.S. Lewis puts it this way:

These things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited.

3. This Gift has been promised to us, and we can rely on the promise. Peter says the earth and sky will be consumed in fire, but: “In keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. (2 Peter 3:13)”  Again this is the same promise reiterated in Revelation 21, quoted above.  It is unimaginably good; better than we could ask or conceive of.

4.  The expectation of second Christmas should affect how we live today (2 Peter 3:14).

14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.

Let’s understand something clearly.  Too many people get the cart before the horse.  We don’t make efforts to be blameless and at peace with God in order to get to heaven and receive these promises.  No. It goes like this:  because we have these promises, and because we believe Jesus has given them to us out of his grace, our response to get ready for the life he offers.  We don’t try to act right in order to receive God’s grace – we receive God’s grace first, and as a result, we make every effort to be blameless and at peace with him.  The promise of Christmas can have a wonderful effect on young children.  Sometimes, it is because they think they must be good in order to get good presents.  But more often, it is the knowledge that at this time of the year, there is plenty of goodness and to go around.  They are going to get goodness, and their response is often to be good in return.  Ours should be the same, whether we are adults or children.  The Lord has promised good to us (Jeremiah 29:11) – let that goodness flow back to him in a response of gratitude.

The fact is this:  if we really are looking forward to the return of Jesus as the ultimate Christmas present, it should affect our lives.  Worries that might otherwise be a big deal, don’t have to be so dominant.  Things that others to do hurt me, don’t have to be unforgivable.  God is being generous with me at Second Christmas, so I can spare some of the goodwill, and be generous with love and forgiveness toward others.  There are a lot of things we get all tied in knots about, that simply won’t matter very much once Second Christmas comes.

5.  We can be secure in grace. (2 Peter 3:17-18)

17 Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position.  18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.

Peter writes that we should be on our guard.  We are not invincible.  We might be carried away by the opinions of others, or our own love of sin.  However, though we are not invulnerable, we can be secure – Peter himself calls our position secure.  He tells us to grow in grace.  What does that mean?  I think it means that we grow in our understanding of how powerful and incredible God’s grace and love are.  Because of what Jesus has done, there is no sin you commit than cannot be forgiven if you repent.  There is nothing that can keep God’s love from you.  Second Christmas is coming, and it is good, and the promise is yours simply by trusting that it is for you.  These verses are about the end of the world.  But they are not meant to scare us – they are written to encourage us, and comfort us.

Enjoy Christmas this year.  But keep your eyes on the real promise – the Second Christmas, the return of the One who came the first time as a little baby. To focus our thoughts right now, let me close with two more quotes from C.S. Lewis and the weight of glory:

At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of the morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so someday, God willing, we shall get in.

Nature is mortal; we shall outlive her. When all the suns and nublae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive. Nature is only the image, the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture invites us to use. We are summoned to pass in through nature, beyond her, into that splendor which she fitfully reflects.

Merry Christmas!

ADVENT #3: STAYING FILLED

On By Pastor TomIn Advent, Bible, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment
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Sometimes it can feel like the Christian life might be a bit repetitive and boring. But we cannot live on continual excitement. We have to keep returning to get our spiritual fuel replenished, and sometimes that involves very ordinary, everyday sorts of things. Part of being ready for Jesus involves being faithful, day in, and day out. If we seek Him, he has the resources we need to remain faithful and ready.

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Advent is a time for preparation. The original “advent” was a time when many different prophecies were being fulfilled. Magi in Persia recognized an unusual configuration of stars, which signaled something portentous. Zechariah the Priest, and his wife Elizabeth, conceived a child, and Zechariah himself was struck dumb by a prophecy. Augustus Caesar got antsy about his empire, and called a census that made a descendant of King David return to his hometown of Bethlehem, along with his pregnant wife. When we read the New Testament narratives of Christmas, and the coming of the messiah, we get the sense that something big was coming, that the world was filled with anticipation.

In a sense, that was very true. But it seems clear that hardly anyone picked up on the fact that big events were brewing, that God was moving in history. No one recognized the Messiah when he came.

We recognize now that he came. We can trace back to the prophecies in Isaiah and from Moses and others, and we see how Jesus fulfilled them. But back then, very few people caught on. Jesus, while he was still on earth physically, promised that he would come back again some day. And he warned us that the day of his return will catch many people unprepared, just like the day of his birth. In the closing chapters of his book, the Apostle Matthew recorded some of the things Jesus said about his return. Today, we will look at one parable that Jesus used to describe this event. This the the parable of the ten bridesmaids in Matthew 25:1-13.

Back in those days, weddings were a very big deal. Many people were bone-cracking poor, but a wedding gave them a genuine reason to celebrate. In addition, most people were likely to get a lot more food at weddings than they usually would. In some cases the feast would go on for seven days, so those who were lucky enough to partake, may have counted on a wedding to help them through hungry times. All in all you might say that folks looked forward to a wedding the way we might look forward to… Christmas. Interesting, right?

The “business” of the marriage – the ceremony, you might say – took place between the groom and the bride’s parents, some of it up to a year before the marriage was consummated. After that year was concluded, there was a procession, usually after nightfall. The bridegroom would travel from his house to a place where he met up with the attendants of the bride (not exactly bridesmaids as we think of them, but close enough). The “bridesmaids” all carried lamps, or torches made from oil-soaked rags. Generally, these lights burned for about 15 minutes. When the bridegroom came, they formed a lighted procession around him, which traveled to the home of the bride. While they went along, others joined them, it became kind of a traveling party. They arrived at the Bride’s home, and she joined her husband, and from there, they all paraded joyfully back to the house of the groom. Immediately, the feast and week-long celebration began.

Jesus describes ten bridesmaids. They probably had their lamps lit in expectation of the bridegroom, because he says “they went out to meet the groom.” But he was delayed. Remember, this is a third world country, two-thousand years ago, before the invention of clocks or watches. Things happened when they happened. Usually, they happened on the correct day, but it was very hard to nail people down to specific times. Anyway, while they waited, either their lamps went out, or they eventually put them out. The groom was so long in coming that they fell asleep. When at last he came, they lit their lights again. Five wise bridesmaids had brought extra oil, and their lights were replenished, and ready to burn for as long as was necessary again. But the five others had no light left. By the time they had found oil, it was too late, and they were excluded from the feast.

Jesus tells this story as part of his teaching about his eventual return to earth. Most parables are told just to make a few simple points, and this is no exception.

First, there seems to me to be a strong correlation between “oil” and the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, Kings and Priests were anointed with oil, to signify the Spirit of God. In fact, the word “anointed” came to signify “filled with the Holy Spirit.” I think Jesus was deliberate about choosing a story in which the presence of oil was the key point; and I think he did so because one of his main teachings here is about the Holy Spirit.

The message is here simple, but profound: You can’t get by on a one-time experience with God. Sooner or later, you’ll run out of spiritual fuel, and you could end up missing the Ultimate Wedding Feast, the return of Jesus.

Often, when you start your spiritual life with Jesus, it is very exciting. It changes everything. Sometimes, we experience a renewal of our faith, and that is also very exhilarating. But we can’t live on excitement forever. And it is exhausting to try to artificially generate new excitement to keep us going. At some point, the rubber meets the road. The bridesmaids were thinking, “I thought something was supposed to happen by now. This is dull, and boring.” It’s easy for us to begin to feel that way, spiritually.

However, we need to live what we know, day by day. Sometimes daily grind gets ordinary and boring, but it is where life is lived. Going to work, coming home, running errands, spending time in Christian Fellowship, serving others. It can feel like we get stuck in a rut, sometimes. And sometimes we do get in an unproductive rut. However, far more often, it is not a rut, it is just real life, and we need to be faithful, patient and persevering.

To make it through times like that, we need enough oil for our lamps – in fact, we need the Holy Spirit. If we hang around until the excitement fades, and then go look for more excitement somewhere else, we are acting like the five foolish bridesmaids. While they were out looking for something they had run out of, the wedding procession began, and they were left out of the feast.

Clearly, according to this parable, one experience with God is not enough. Ephesians 5:18 tells us to “keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit.” As we have seen somewhat recently, the apostles in Acts experienced a filling of the Holy Spirit over and over. So how do you get your lamp refilled?

We know the basics, right? We need to be regularly reading, or listening to, the Bible. We need to be regularly connected with other Christians in genuine fellowship, and worship the Lord together with them. We need to allow the Lord to use our lives to serve others. Some of that is what feels like a rut, sometimes, but we cannot hope to keep our lamps full without these things.

There are other things that can be added to these to help us. I think these others things could be different for different people. I can get refilled by reading a really good Christian book – something like “Desiirng God” by Jon Piper, or, “Waking the Dead” by John Eldredge, or “The Pursuit of God” by AW Tozer, or “Abide in Christ” by Andrew Murray. I have also found that the Lord often refills me through new music. I get refilled by being in nature, by thinking and writing.

Other folks get refilled in different ways – by exercising, or by making something with their hands, or writing poetry. For some it comes through times of concentrated prayer and fasting. Fasting is always good to try, if you are really stuck. Others, obviously, find it very useful to listen to sermons on the TV, radio, or the Internet. I am positive that if you ask God how he wants to replenish your oil, he will tell you, and make it available to you. Ask him, and then watch for his answer.

Here’s something else from this parable: No one else can be filled on your behalf. Remember that the 5 wise bridesmaids did not have enough oil to spare for the 5 foolish ones? Jesus included that detail in order to illustrate this point. You have to take responsibility for yourself to get the oil you need on an ongoing basis. No one else can do it for you, any more than they can eat a meal to satisfy your hunger.

Finally the time to replenish your oil is now. One of Jesus stated points is: “Therefore be alert because you do not know either the day or the hour.” Don’t think, “well, I’ll deal with my spiritual issues after Christmas.” Christmas might not come this year. Jesus may come back first. Even if he doesn’t, any person could die at any moment in an accident. Refilling your oil – getting refilled by the Holy Spirit – needs to be a priority.