00:00: though those are fun and we'll do those.
00:05: It's about celebrating Christ.
00:09: For years we've celebrated Christ in our family using an Advent calendar.
00:14: We've got this little wooden board and each day you open the box and you pull out another character, a star or a shepherd or an animal or whatever, and you assemble it on the center and you build out the manger scene.
00:33: We celebrate that Christ came.
00:38: We similarly for many years, we haven't done the last few years, but for many years we've done adornments, these little ornaments that you put on the Christmas tree and each side they kind of open up and they talk about who Jesus is and each one highlights a different aspect of who Jesus is and so we can turn our attention to who this is that has come in the person of Jesus Christ.
01:02: Jesus came and he's coming again.
01:04: That's what Advent is all about.
01:06: But why?
01:09: Why did Jesus come?
01:11: And the obvious answer that if you've been church for any length of time, you'll give is, well, to save people, of course.
01:18: To save not just you or me, but all people who trust in Jesus Christ.
01:25: And that is an absolutely true answer.
01:27: John 6, 40.
01:29: Jesus said, Everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.
01:40: It is true.
01:41: It is right.
01:42: It is central.
01:42: It is massively significant that Jesus has come to save all who trust in him.
01:49: Jesus absolutely came for the purpose of saving us.
01:54: Jesus wanted to save you and to save me and to save people from every tribe and tongue and nation and people group on the earth.
02:03: But that is only one of many reasons why Jesus came.
02:12: When I read John 6, 40 just now, I left off the first part of the verse intentionally.
02:17: Let me read it with the beginning attached.
02:20: For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
02:30: For this is the will of my Father.
02:35: Even just a couple of verses before that, Jesus said, I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
02:48: One of the purposes for which Christ has come is to do the will of his Father.
02:52: To do the will of God the Father.
02:55: To obey.
02:57: To obey.
02:58: To live out what God has called him to do.
03:02: Jesus came to do his Father's will.
03:04: It was part of his motivation in coming.
03:08: The very purpose of Jesus' coming to earth was, in part, that he would do, in fullness, the will of his Father.
03:19: I think it's worth thinking about that, this Advent season.
03:25: Because we often think about the baby in a manger, and rightly so.
03:28: And we think about how that leads to the cross, and the tomb, and the empty tomb, and the resurrection, and rightly so.
03:36: And how that makes the way open between us and God.
03:40: And that's true.
03:41: But Jesus did not come because he went rogue.
03:50: Ephesians chapter 2, verse 3, describes how God sees us apart from Christ.
03:55: We were, by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
04:01: And 1 Corinthians 1.10 tells us, Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come.
04:07: So, by very nature, in our sin, apart from Jesus, we are deserving of God's wrath.
04:15: Jesus came to save us from that wrath of God that's waiting for us at the end of our lives.
04:21: And so it would be very easy to get this false picture in our minds of loving, generous, giving, saving Jesus, versus the big, bad, mean, grumpy God the Father.
04:35: And that Jesus kind of went rogue against God the Father in coming to save when God the Father just wanted to punish us.
04:43: That's an easy picture to get, but it's not faithful to Scripture.
04:48: You see, God is perfectly united.
04:52: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, one God, three persons, in perfect unity at all times.
05:01: Never an argument between them.
05:03: Never a dispute between them.
05:04: Perfect harmony.
05:07: Perfect unity.
05:10: Yes, Jesus wanted us to receive mercy and forgiveness and came to make that possible.
05:16: But so did God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.
05:19: In fact, it was the Father's plan all along to send Jesus for us.
05:25: In fact, the theologians talk about it like this.
05:28: When you think about salvation, God the Father is the author.
05:32: He authored the plan of salvation.
05:35: God the Son, Jesus, achieved salvation.
05:39: And God the Spirit applies salvation.
05:43: All three persons, each with their role in perfect harmony for our salvation.
05:49: 1 Peter 1, verses 18-21 says, You were ransomed with the precious blood of Christ.
06:01: He, Jesus, was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God.
06:15: In other words, God foreknew, God chose ahead of time, before the foundation of the world, before God created the world, He chose Jesus for something, namely, to save us, but then waited.
06:37: He waited through creation.
06:39: He waited through the fall.
06:40: He waited through the flood.
06:41: He waited through the creation of Israel and the slavery in Egypt and the rescue from slavery and bringing them into the promised land and the nations and the judges and the kings and all that stuff.
06:52: And He waited until the time was right.
06:55: And then He sent Jesus.
06:57: This was God's plan from before the foundation of the world.
07:04: Perhaps the most well-known Christian children's song is Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
07:19: Most Christians are familiar and know God loves us.
07:25: Do you really know that?
07:26: Or do you sometimes struggle at a heart level to believe what your mind has been filled with?
07:36: Do you ever struggle to believe that God really, actually loves you?
07:45: You're not alone if you struggle with that.
07:50: God does love you.
07:53: There's a reason that John 3.16 is so famous.
07:56: God so loved the world, He so loved the world, He loved the world thusly, in this manner, that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
08:11: The Father sending the Son was love put to action.
08:17: In fact, it was the loving plan of God from before creation put into action to rescue you.
08:28: Before God created the world, before there were oceans and land and animals, before there was people, before Adam and Eve and the fall and sin and the serpent and all that stuff, before all that, God designed you in His mind.
08:44: God planned and purposed for you to come into being, for your parents to pair up and give birth to you and your grandparents before them and so on.
09:01: And He planned from before you were a twinkle in your father's eye that He was going to love you unto eternity through Jesus Christ.
09:14: Yes, God loves you.
09:16: And when I say God loves you, I don't just mean Jesus loves you.
09:19: I mean God the Father loves you and God the Spirit loves you.
09:22: Rescuing you by sending Jesus was not a hard sell.
09:26: Jesus didn't have to wait for the right moment to approach His Father and say, well, you know, Dad, I have this idea that maybe we bring Tim up here and I know you don't like the idea but let me get through this, God.
09:43: No.
09:45: It was not a hard sell.
09:48: God's not like that.
09:50: Jesus did not have to beg and plead with His stingy old dad to save you.
09:55: Rather, as Ephesians 1, 3-5 tells us, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ for He, that is God the Father, chose us, Christians, in Him, Jesus, before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.
10:21: In love, He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will.
10:34: God's plan to make you a son or daughter of God was in love.
10:46: And not only was it in love, but it was in accord with His pleasure and will.
10:55: sometimes love comes easy, right?
10:59: Puppy love, right?
11:01: You're dating and you've only been dating for a little while and pitter-patter and oh, yay, I feel on cloud nine and I'm so excited.
11:10: And that's wonderful.
11:11: Enjoy it because it doesn't last, right?
11:15: And all the married people said, Amen.
11:18: There's a love that goes beyond puppy love, right?
11:21: And there's times when you choose to love your spouse despite your spouse.
11:30: Not to spite your spouse, that's not good.
11:33: But despite your spouse, you choose to love that person even though they're being a knucklehead, right?
11:41: I'm looking to see if anybody dares nod to that.
11:44: Nobody nodded.
11:45: I know it's true, but you're all wise not to acknowledge that your spouse is being a knucklehead.
11:50: That's good.
11:52: There's the love that comes hard and there's the love that comes easy.
11:57: This is the love that comes easy.
12:00: It was in accordance with His pleasure and will.
12:04: Jesus said, Oh yeah.
12:07: I want them for children.
12:09: I want to create them and redeem them so that they are my sons and daughters forever.
12:15: God's pleasure and will.
12:18: And this is not some broad offer where God says, Oh, I'm just going to kind of float it out there and see who signs up.
12:29: God predestined before creation the individuals that end up saved.
12:37: God had your face, your life, your mind, your heart, your voice in mind when He said, I'm going to love her, I'm going to love him into my family forever.
12:53: It pleased God the Father to dream up your rescue and your inclusion in His family.
13:01: No wonder then that Ephesians 5.2 tells us that Christ also, Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
13:11: God the Father was pleased to do it in love.
13:13: God the Son was pleased to do it in love.
13:15: In fact, when we think about what happened at the cross, we need to remember that this wasn't Jesus versus the Father.
13:23: Isaiah 53.10 tells us, it was the Lord's will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer.
13:30: Now the Lord, in this verse, is not Jesus because Jesus is the Him who was crushed and suffered on the cross.
13:37: So the Lord, in this verse, must be God the Father.
13:40: God the Father's will was to crush Jesus.
13:45: Why?
13:49: Jesus never sinned.
13:52: Why would God the Father want to crush or punish Jesus at the cross?
13:58: Because Jesus traded places with you.
14:03: Because Jesus said, let me take credit for Pastor Dylan's sins.
14:10: Let me take credit for Dennis' sin and for Karen's sin and for Cindy's sin and for Jada's sin and for each and every person who trusts in Jesus.
14:22: He said, give me credit for their failures, Father, and punish me instead.
14:28: That's why Jesus was punished by God the Father.
14:32: That's why Jesus, why God the Father was pleased to punish Jesus because He knew that He was in so doing rescuing those He loves.
14:41: Rescuing out of eternity of suffering and hell.
14:45: He was rescuing into His family.
14:47: God was in on this through and through.
14:54: 2 Corinthians 5.21 tells us, for our sake, He, God, made Him, Jesus, to be sin who knew no sin so that in Him, Jesus, we, Christians, might become the righteousness of God.
15:10: God said, Jesus, you become sinful not by sinning but by taking credit for their garbage so that they're connected to you and they can be righteous because they get your righteousness.
15:23: You take their sin, you give them your righteousness, it's a trade, it'll be perfect.
15:30: That plan pleased God because He loves you.
15:37: The Apostle Peter writes in 1 Peter chapter 1, 19 and 20, you were ransomed with the precious blood of Christ He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in His last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God.
15:59: That's what this is all about.
16:02: You were bought with the priceless blood of Christ.
16:06: He was chosen before God created the world to be the Savior but He came into the world in these last days for you.
16:15: When you think about Christmas, when you think about Christ entering the world so long after all the rest of the Old Testament stuff, realize He did this for you, believer in Jesus.
16:29: He did this not generically, not just to accomplish some big global thing, He did it for you because He loves you.
16:38: the Apostle John was very particular about Jesus' life and death and how it was about pleasing the Father and obeying the Father.
16:48: John chapter 5 verse 6, Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of His own accord but only what He sees the Father doing.
17:03: You can literally translate that.
17:04: The Son does nothing on His own initiative.
17:07: Everything He's doing, everything Jesus did was about fulfilling the Father's plan.
17:12: in Acts chapter 4, verses 27 and 28, we read, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed.
17:35: They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.
17:40: That's a strange pair of verses.
17:41: Jesus, these guys did something really bad.
17:44: These guys did something really bad against God the Son, the one that God the Father chose to be the King of the world and Savior of the world.
17:54: And when they did that really bad thing, they did exactly what you wanted, God.
17:59: That's a weird pairing.
18:01: Except God is in control of history.
18:05: And He says in Word, in His Word, and He says in historical reality, I will accomplish what I intend.
18:15: This is what the baby in the manger is all about.
18:18: It's about God the Father at just the right time bringing into play His plans from before time began.
18:25: Herod and Pilate, they did what they did out of their own sinfulness and yet in perfect alignment with God's plan.
18:34: Divine sovereignty, human responsibility fitting perfectly together.
18:42: Christmas is not about animals and a manger and a barn scene generically.
18:49: It's about God's perfect plan to love you into eternity with Him.
18:55: And there's one last thing I want you to see here.
18:59: Jesus came to obey the Father, to please the Father as the Father was loving you.
19:08: But Jesus said something very important about His attitude towards the Father.
19:15: John 14, 31.
19:17: Jesus said, I do as the Father has commanded me so that the world may know that I love the Father.
19:30: so when Jesus obeyed God the Father, He was loving you into salvation.
19:39: And when Jesus obeyed the Father, He was loving the Father.
19:45: Jesus considered His obedience to God the Father to be His own love on display for the world to see.
19:53: Look at the baby in the manger, headed to the cross and the tomb and see the love of God the Son for God the Father.
20:00: Heartfelt obedience to God is a demonstration of love for God.
20:04: And that's not true just for Jesus.
20:06: Jesus talked about His disciples obeying Him as an expression of love.
20:12: And so this Christmas, this Advent season, as you think about what Jesus came to do for you, as you think about God the Father's love and plan for you, and God the Son's love and plan for you, and God the Spirit's love and plan for you.
20:33: And as you think about Jesus' love for His Heavenly Father, let's choose to imitate Jesus by showing God that we love Him by obeying Him.
20:52: what is the first and most central thing that we can do to obey God?
21:01: The correct answer is not go to church.
21:05: The correct answer is not read your Bible.
21:09: The correct answer is not be baptized.
21:14: The correct answer is to have faith.
21:19: The first and most central act of obedience to God and of love for God is to trust Him because of Jesus.
21:32: To trust Him is at the center of loving Him.
21:41: Let's pray.
21:44: Father, I pray that this Christmas season you would send your spirit to push aside in our thinking and in our hearts all the cultural things, not that we have to get rid of them, but push them aside so that we're not focused on them and lift up our chins from the practicalities of this month and fix our attention on Jesus.
22:15: Help us to treasure Him.
22:18: Help us to love Him.
22:23: Help us to see what He has done and to see the love of God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit toward us.
22:32: Help us then to respond to that love by trusting Him.
22:37: Trusting Him with salvation.
22:39: Trusting Him with the surrender of our lives to follow Jesus.
22:43: Trusting Him for eternity.
22:44: Trusting Him for the things we face this month.
22:48: Trusting Him with everything.
22:53: Pray these things in Jesus' name.
22:55: Amen.