back to index2021-12-19 Immanuel With Us
00:00:00.000 |
If you can turn your Bibles with me to Matthew Chapter 1, we'll be reading from verse 21-25. 00:00:21.680 |
"So she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people 00:00:29.140 |
Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "Behold, 00:00:33.100 |
the virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel," 00:00:40.800 |
And Joseph spoke from his sleep, Joseph woke from his sleep, and did as the angel of the 00:00:45.840 |
Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth 00:00:56.280 |
Heavenly Father, we pray for continued grace as we celebrate the birth of Christ, Immanuel. 00:01:09.640 |
Help us to understand the impact of what it is that we celebrate this holiday season. 00:01:15.920 |
Help us to know the meaning of Christmas, that not only for ourselves, but for all those 00:01:21.740 |
around us, that we may be a good witness, the Oral Home of Christ. 00:01:26.440 |
May your blessing be upon this time, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. 00:01:31.680 |
Now that I have children who are a bit older, I am able to get legitimate gifts, where prior 00:01:39.240 |
to every Christmas, it was just one-way street. 00:01:42.740 |
So now they have their own jobs, and they have money in their pocket, so each time they 00:01:46.880 |
come around, they're asking, "What do you want? 00:01:54.520 |
I remember years ago, I forgot how many years, maybe about three years ago, you know, they 00:01:59.620 |
asked, three or four years, they asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I think I 00:02:03.560 |
told them I wanted shoes, and they mustered up whatever money that they had, and they 00:02:19.200 |
It's probably one of the most comfortable shoes I had, but I would never wear used shoes, 00:02:23.480 |
but I wore it for a period because my children got it for me. 00:02:27.840 |
It's the first time they were able to muster up money and get me something, and so I did 00:02:35.040 |
But you know, when our children were younger, they would ask, "What do you want for Christmas?" 00:02:39.360 |
And I'm sure some of you parents can relate, because we know they don't have resources, 00:02:43.920 |
they don't have money, and so typically what I would say is I want peace and quiet, right. 00:02:51.000 |
And so they know that, "What do you want for Christmas?" 00:02:52.720 |
It's like, "Well, the only thing that you can afford to give me that I'd want is peace 00:02:59.440 |
Just be good to your brothers, good to your sisters, right. 00:03:03.560 |
Because when the children are young, so much of your energy is given to take care of your 00:03:07.480 |
kids that any little help is going to be beneficial. 00:03:12.240 |
So we would say, okay, you know, it's half joking, but seriously, we say we want some 00:03:16.340 |
peace and quiet, right, to be good to your brother, to be good to your sister. 00:03:22.400 |
Christmas is the only holiday where we celebrate someone else's birthday by giving presents 00:03:26.800 |
to other people other than the person that we celebrate, right. 00:03:31.880 |
Christmas is a day we celebrate the birth of Christ, but all of our attention is given 00:03:36.580 |
to our brothers and sisters and friends and family and to make sure that they're well 00:03:45.480 |
It's appropriate because God spends so much time and energy taking care of us. 00:03:51.360 |
What is it that you and I could possibly give to God that He doesn't already have? 00:03:57.760 |
There's nothing that we have that He doesn't already have in abundance, but for us to join 00:04:03.520 |
Him in taking care of His children that He cares for and loves. 00:04:08.140 |
And so this is a special day as we come together and celebrate Jesus's birthday, but I want 00:04:13.040 |
to make sure that we understand what it is that we are really celebrating. 00:04:17.960 |
And none of the things that you'll hear today is going to be anything particularly new, 00:04:22.280 |
how many Christmases that you've gone through. 00:04:25.560 |
But I think the depth and the impact of what it is that we talk about this morning is important 00:04:34.080 |
As Jesus was being prophesied that He was going to come, obviously He was named Jesus, 00:04:39.640 |
Savior, but He said the title that was given Him was a title that was prophesied in the 00:04:44.540 |
book of Isaiah, that His name would be Emmanuel. 00:04:48.400 |
And Emmanuel basically means that He is God with us, God with us. 00:04:55.600 |
And it's important for us to understand what that means because as simple as that is, and 00:05:01.000 |
you've probably heard that word many, many times, sing it every Christmas, but what is 00:05:09.280 |
So this morning I want to try to unpack this word Emmanuel and what does that have to do 00:05:17.200 |
First meaning behind the title Emmanuel is pretty obvious. 00:05:27.560 |
You wouldn't be here if you didn't believe that. 00:05:30.600 |
But the impact of that meaning, again, we live in a culture where that's being challenged 00:05:38.960 |
Years ago I was out on campus at UCI trying to share the gospel and I met a UCI professor 00:05:43.520 |
who was challenging us and saying that Jesus never claimed to be God. 00:05:52.680 |
At that time I wasn't versed well enough in scripture to be able to open the Bible and 00:05:56.580 |
argue with him, and I remember going back to my professors at Biola asking, "Can you 00:06:03.800 |
And he opened up a few scriptures and it was crystal clear, but at that time I couldn't. 00:06:09.520 |
And I was looking, every time I go on campus I look for him. 00:06:14.840 |
But of all the things that I can point out, to me the greatest and the most clearest place 00:06:20.640 |
where Jesus declares to be God Himself is Matthew chapter, sorry, in John chapter 5, 00:06:29.880 |
"For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives 00:06:38.120 |
That statement alone, where Jesus says, "God has the power to give life and so do I." 00:06:45.280 |
That statement alone would have gotten stoned because only God is the author of life. 00:06:51.560 |
And He says, "God has the authority and so do I," in verse 22, "for not even the Father 00:06:56.880 |
judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son." 00:07:01.040 |
Now if the first statement wasn't blasphemous enough, the second statement He says, "I do 00:07:10.280 |
And then third, in verse 23, "So that all will honor the Son, even as they honor the 00:07:16.400 |
He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him." 00:07:19.440 |
Do you remember how many times in the scripture where a prophet would declare God's Word or 00:07:24.920 |
they would perform miracles and they would bow down in honor of the prophet and the prophet 00:07:30.620 |
or the angel in fear would beg them, "Get back up. 00:07:37.440 |
If you worship me, you will be judged and I will be judged." 00:07:41.060 |
But Jesus here says, "If you do not honor me, you do not honor the Father." 00:07:45.840 |
And so He places Himself to be equal with God. 00:07:49.600 |
So any one of these statements would have been blasphemous enough because it was crystal 00:07:53.960 |
clear and that's exactly how the Jews understood it. 00:07:56.840 |
Because they said, "We want to stone you, not because of the many miracles, but because 00:08:08.360 |
In John chapter 1 verse 1, it says, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with 00:08:16.920 |
You notice here He says the Word in reference to Jesus was with God and yet He was also 00:08:26.080 |
So we see in the very beginning of the gospel there is a statement of His Trinitarian relationship 00:08:31.960 |
with God the Father, the second person, because He was with God and yet He says He also is 00:08:44.800 |
When we say that Jesus is Emmanuel, it's declaring who He is. 00:08:51.040 |
Even in our wildest imagination, we can't create something bigger than God. 00:08:58.480 |
You know, like recently we had all these Avengers movies coming out. 00:09:01.360 |
I know Spider-Man is very popular right now, but among the Avenger movies about these superheroes, 00:09:07.840 |
We would ask our questions just as a fun question, you know, what superhero would you want to 00:09:14.120 |
So if you're going to pick one, you're going to pick one with the most power. 00:09:28.120 |
Well in recent history, they came up with another character, not necessarily a superhero, 00:09:33.280 |
but a character that can demolish all other superheroes. 00:09:37.560 |
Thanos, which happens to mean in Greek, death. 00:09:43.480 |
So they created this figure, if you have the five stones, that basically by clicking the 00:09:47.720 |
finger you can destroy half the world and all the powers of the other superheroes, imaginations 00:09:53.600 |
of all the other superheroes could not overcome this power of Thanos. 00:10:00.080 |
Even in our wildest imagination, even with all the power that Thanos has with all the 00:10:05.680 |
stones, it still functions within God's creation. 00:10:12.840 |
So even in our wildest imagination, the most powerful being that was created by some of 00:10:19.600 |
the most creative people in the world created a being that is a tiny little figure in God's 00:10:28.720 |
To say that Jesus is God, we need to understand the gravity of what that means. 00:10:35.440 |
In Colossians 1.16 it says, "For by him all things were created, both in heavens and on 00:10:44.740 |
Anything that you and I know of, plus the invisible world, whether thrones or dominions 00:10:49.940 |
or rulers or authority, all things have been created through him and for him. 00:10:54.500 |
So I want to show you a video to kind of illustrate, because sometimes it's easier to visualize. 00:11:08.060 |
So I want you to see the gravity of what I'm talking about. 00:14:22.060 |
I wanted to visually show you just the magnitude of even just the galaxy that we live in. 00:14:30.060 |
The largest planet star that's in our galaxy. It requires over a thousand years for it to travel around it. 00:14:38.060 |
That's in, that's just one star of billions of stars in our galaxy. 00:14:42.060 |
And our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies that they know of. 00:14:52.060 |
And think how tiny our Earth is in light of one planet. 00:14:57.060 |
And think how tiny that planet is in comparison to all the other planets in the galaxy. 00:15:02.060 |
And think about that galaxy in the context of all the other galaxies. 00:15:10.060 |
And so the scripture says Jesus is the creator of all that. 00:15:15.060 |
And they're constantly finding more galaxies. 00:15:18.060 |
So we can't even, we can't even comprehend how big God is. 00:15:23.060 |
And so when he says God with us, he's referring to that God. 00:15:29.060 |
And that's just what we see. The Bible says he's a creator of the visible and the invisible. 00:15:34.060 |
So I think it's important for us to understand the gravity of when we see, 00:15:39.060 |
when we say that we have this relationship with this God. 00:15:46.060 |
That we understand what it is that we are worshiping. 00:15:49.060 |
What it is that we are praying to. Who it is that we are praying to. 00:15:52.060 |
And secondly, God with us, the word Emmanuel means that God took on human flesh. 00:16:02.060 |
You know, whenever we celebrate Christmas, we say he humbled himself, 00:16:05.060 |
became an infant to a teenage mom who wasn't wealthy, was born in a manger, 00:16:12.060 |
and he was humble, and we talk about all of that. 00:16:19.060 |
We have a tiny little virus that you and I have never seen. 00:16:24.060 |
That the world doesn't have an answer for yet. 00:16:28.060 |
And as a result of that, all of the earth has shut down to a certain degree. 00:16:37.060 |
Something that tiny has caused this kind of disturbance to us. 00:16:44.060 |
So to understand that God came and took on human flesh, 00:16:55.060 |
Think about all the different mysteries that we wonder about. 00:16:59.060 |
And we think, you know, like, oh, you know, can a man really come back from the dead? 00:17:04.060 |
And there's all so much debate about the resurrection of Christ. 00:17:13.060 |
If you believe that that God of the universe became a man, 00:17:22.060 |
Raising Lazarus from the dead should not be a problem. 00:17:26.060 |
You can snap his finger and the whole earth could come back to life if he wanted to. 00:17:35.060 |
You know, there's a--in the scientific world, 00:17:38.060 |
they have this principle called the anthropic principle. 00:17:41.060 |
And basically is what is necessary for human life to happen. 00:17:46.060 |
And so years ago, they thought that maybe there were thousands of stars 00:17:51.060 |
and thousands of planets out there that could possibly harbor life, 00:17:57.060 |
has all the things that is necessary to have life. 00:17:59.060 |
But more and more they studied, they realized that number is dwindling down more and more. 00:18:04.060 |
The more knowledge that they have of what is necessary to have life, 00:18:08.060 |
now they have dwindled all of that down to possibly 60. 00:18:13.060 |
And they said from 60 is actually shrinking every time they find something new. 00:18:18.060 |
That all of these things need to happen in order for life to actually even happen. 00:18:23.060 |
Albert Einstein, in the process of studying the universe, says this, 00:18:28.060 |
"The temptation to believe that the universe is a product of some sort of design, 00:18:32.060 |
a manifestation of subtle aesthetic and mathematical judgment, is overwhelming. 00:18:37.060 |
The belief that there is something behind it all is one that I personally share with the majority of scientists." 00:18:44.060 |
Even though Albert Einstein never came to faith as a Christian, 00:18:49.060 |
he says that not only him, but majority of scientists who look into this, 00:18:54.060 |
said because there's so many things that need to happen, 00:18:58.060 |
so many things that the flesh needs in order for us to be able to breathe and wake up and continue, 00:19:05.060 |
that he believes that it is impossible to think that there wasn't some intelligent design. 00:19:16.060 |
"Have this attitude in yourself, which was also in Christ Jesus, 00:19:19.060 |
who although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 00:19:25.060 |
but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant and being made in likeness of men." 00:19:30.060 |
He said God, in every way God, decided to veil his glory and he put on humanity. 00:19:39.060 |
"Well, you know what happened was God kind of abandoned some of his deity in order to take on humanity." 00:19:46.060 |
The theologians, to better explain this, describe this union of God in humanity and God himself, 00:19:57.060 |
The word hypostatic union basically means to stand under. 00:20:02.060 |
Hypo, where we get the word to be under, stastis means to stand. 00:20:08.060 |
So basically the description is that God is 100% man and 100% God. 00:20:14.060 |
But let me better illustrate this with an illustration. 00:20:19.060 |
If you see this, on the bottom you have water and on the top you have oil. 00:20:25.060 |
So when you describe this, the oil on the top is 100% oil, 00:20:29.060 |
the water on the bottom is 100% water because it does not mix. 00:20:33.060 |
And yet when we talk about this cup, we talk about water and the oil in the same cup. 00:20:39.060 |
And so that's what hypostatic union is a description of. 00:20:42.060 |
Of God, in every way, still retaining his deity, yet veiled his glory in order to take on human flesh. 00:20:52.060 |
And so he took on all of the frailty of mankind while retaining the fullness of his deity. 00:21:10.060 |
that this Christmas we celebrate the God of the galaxies, 00:21:16.060 |
took on what you and I could possibly imagine, took on human form. 00:21:22.060 |
I mean, of course, that's what Christmas is, right? 00:21:25.060 |
You've heard this, we sing about this every single year. 00:21:28.060 |
So after a while, we say, yeah, this is the day we celebrate Jesus' birthday. 00:21:34.060 |
Think about all the things that we contemplate, we ask questions and we wonder about. 00:21:39.060 |
But the greatest mystery of human history is this. 00:21:44.060 |
That that God walked on this earth as a human being. 00:21:50.060 |
And so the natural question that you and I would ask is, why? Why did he do that? 00:21:56.060 |
So either, if you do not believe this, this is harder to believe than anything else. 00:22:06.060 |
Like Jesus' resurrection, feeding of the 5,000, that's easy. 00:22:13.060 |
Either you say, that's ridiculous, that God became man? 00:22:17.060 |
And you would either reject Christmas and reject everything else that comes with that. 00:22:22.060 |
Or, if you understand and believe Christmas, then everything else, 00:22:29.060 |
everything else that comes along with that makes perfect sense. 00:22:34.060 |
The natural question that you and I need to ask about this is, if God truly became man, 00:22:41.060 |
I remember years ago, when we were going out to China, we would go to the remotest part of China. 00:22:46.060 |
And it wasn't that difficult, but obviously, we're pretty wealthy compared to the rest of the world. 00:22:55.060 |
Everywhere we travel, we want to make sure that we have proper lodging, there's food there, 00:23:01.060 |
But we were going to an area where the hotel wasn't exactly comfortable for us, 00:23:06.060 |
no air conditioning, and the food wasn't to our liking. 00:23:10.060 |
But we would go there because we wanted to share the gospel, spend two weeks waking up early in the morning, 00:23:16.060 |
preparing, and then we would literally go to sleep at 11, something like 12 o'clock at night. 00:23:23.060 |
After a couple years of this, one of the leaders of the school, we got comfortable enough, 00:23:27.060 |
we were having dinner, and he leaned over to me and asked me, "Peter, why do you guys come?" 00:23:37.060 |
"You guys are wealthy. Why do you spend your own money to come here, stay at a hotel?" 00:23:42.060 |
Because this guy traveled to Europe, and so he knows what it's like in the United States. 00:23:45.060 |
And he said, "Why do you spend your own money to come here, teach a bunch of students that you don't know, 00:23:50.060 |
spend all these hours with them, and what benefit do you get from this?" 00:23:56.060 |
So obviously, we're trying to keep our gospel message down low because he's one of the leaders there. 00:24:04.060 |
If I give him a wrong answer, he's going to know, it's like, "Oh, he's fooling me." 00:24:09.060 |
So I said to him, "It's because we're Christians." 00:24:16.060 |
So we're Christians, and so as Christians, we are told to help other people. 00:24:22.060 |
And so we're here, and that's part of what it means to be a Christian. 00:24:26.060 |
If we wanted to make money, we could go to Japan and Korea and do the same thing and actually make money doing this. 00:24:32.060 |
But we're doing this because part of what it means to be a Christian is to do this, 00:24:35.060 |
and we want to share what God has given to us. 00:24:40.060 |
And he said, "Is it wrong if the students ask us about what we believe and we tell them we're Christians? 00:24:47.060 |
And he said, "Oh, no, no, that's not illegal. 00:24:52.060 |
And he said, "Is it illegal for us to talk about Thanksgiving, for Easter, Christmas?" 00:24:59.060 |
As long as it's in the context of the school. 00:25:02.060 |
But I share all of this because it was perplexing to him. 00:25:05.060 |
Why would you guys who have the money to go somewhere nice, comfortable, and vacation, you know, to check off a bucket list, 00:25:15.060 |
And all we are is just a little bit more wealthy than they are, but they're all other human beings just like us. 00:25:24.060 |
And yet, when we talk about the God of the universe who came and walked on earth, 00:25:43.060 |
Well, there's three things that I want to highlight here. 00:25:46.060 |
First, the Bible makes it clear, Jesus came to us because we could not go to God. 00:25:53.060 |
The Bible says that because of our sin and rebellion, that we were separated from God. 00:25:58.060 |
We were in rebellion. Mankind is in rebellion against God, refusing to acknowledge him as the creator. 00:26:04.060 |
And because of that, we have been separated from the author of life. 00:26:09.060 |
So this separation isn't simply that we're not able to have a relationship with him, because he's the author of life. 00:26:15.060 |
To be separated from this God means that we have been separated from life itself. 00:26:21.060 |
And so, sinners cannot be in the presence of this holy God, 00:26:25.060 |
just like we cannot be in the presence of a nuclear reactor when it leaks, 00:26:29.060 |
because what comes out of that is going to kill us. 00:26:33.060 |
So the scripture says, a sinful man in the presence of a holy God, we would be destroyed. 00:26:39.060 |
And the Bible says, no man can see God and live. 00:26:45.060 |
So the Bible says that Jesus veiled his glory and came to us. 00:26:51.060 |
It says in Colossians 115, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 00:26:59.060 |
He is the exact representation of his glory, yet veiled. 00:27:03.060 |
And so, in order for us to be able to see God, he came to us. 00:27:10.060 |
Secondly, it says God, in Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God-man, became the perfect mediator. 00:27:20.060 |
If you want somebody to mediate, you want somebody who understands both sides well. 00:27:25.060 |
You don't want somebody just to, if you want somebody to represent just your side, you call an ambassador. 00:27:31.060 |
He said, no, but Jesus Christ came to be the mediator in 1 Timothy 2.5, 00:27:36.060 |
where there is one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. 00:27:43.060 |
As you guys already know, I'm a Korean-American. 00:27:47.060 |
I was born in Korea, raised most of my life in the United States, so I'm more Americanized than Koreanized. 00:27:52.060 |
But I understand the Korean culture enough where when I used to serve in the Korean church, 00:27:57.060 |
I realized there's some huge differences that the younger Korean generation that was born and raised here 00:28:06.060 |
that did not understand that I had to kind of mediate. 00:28:09.060 |
And one of the key things that I learned, and I learned that this is not only true of the Korean culture, 00:28:14.060 |
but most Asian culture functions in a similar way. 00:28:23.060 |
So I'm teaching Chinese to a room filled with Chinese people. 00:28:34.060 |
So in the Western culture, everything is done by contract. 00:28:38.060 |
So even in the church, if you come in, they tell you, well, what's my job, what's my pay, 00:28:42.060 |
what am I supposed to do, what am I not supposed to do? 00:28:44.060 |
And then so you agree on that, and then based on that, you do what you agree on. 00:28:49.060 |
Well, the Korean culture doesn't function that way. 00:28:51.060 |
You can have a contract, but if you have a bad relationship with your elders or leaders, 00:28:58.060 |
But if you have a good relationship with them, if you have guanxi, 00:29:02.060 |
then even if things don't go exactly right, they'll cover you. 00:29:06.060 |
They'll forgive you and they'll support you, and you'll have a good experience. 00:29:10.060 |
But the thing is, people who grew up in the Western culture have a hard time understanding that. 00:29:17.060 |
And that's why a lot of the Western missionaries have a hard time when they get into China 00:29:21.060 |
because they have these rules like, oh, we can't do this, we can't do that. 00:29:24.060 |
And the other Asians, you know, especially Koreans, when they come into China, you know, it's like water. 00:29:36.060 |
And that's kind of how the Asian culture, especially the Korean culture and Chinese culture function. 00:29:41.060 |
And so as somebody in the middle, I have to constantly relate that, right? 00:29:45.060 |
I have to tell the Korean side, this is how the Koreans raised here. 00:29:52.060 |
If you agreed on that, you have to function that way and understand that to them, 00:29:58.060 |
In the Korean culture, if you don't respect your elders, it doesn't matter what you agreed on, right? 00:30:07.060 |
Well, Christ came to be the perfect mediator between God and man because he is 100% God and 100% man. 00:30:15.060 |
He is the perfect mediator between a sinful man and a holy God. 00:30:22.060 |
"For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, 00:30:27.060 |
but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. 00:30:32.060 |
Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy 00:30:41.060 |
The Bible says that Christ intercedes on our behalf 00:30:45.060 |
because the only way that we can reconcile with this holy God is that this perfect mediator stands before us. 00:30:55.060 |
You know, I shared with the first service, I'm going to share this with the second service. 00:31:05.060 |
Those of you who know me know that I was determined to never own a pet. 00:31:11.060 |
And part of the reason why is because we actually had pets when we were younger and didn't have good experience. 00:31:21.060 |
And the other real reason is I don't want to get attached to a pet. 00:31:26.060 |
I don't want to get attached to a pet and then go through the sadness of losing the pet. 00:31:36.060 |
But my family has been begging me for a pet for years, and I was the only person that's like, "No. 00:31:41.060 |
I don't want that smell here, and there's people who are allergic to cats and dogs, 00:31:45.060 |
and I don't want to have to shun people away because we're going to own a cat." 00:31:50.060 |
And then my daughter, I think she devised this plan, right, that she asked us, like, "Can I foster a cat?" 00:32:07.060 |
We're going to take care of her two weeks, you know, we're going to play with the cat, and then return it after two weeks. 00:32:17.060 |
They provide the feed. They provide everything. 00:32:21.060 |
So they bring this cat home, and the first two, three days, the cat is meowing all night. 00:32:27.060 |
You know? And Faith is sleeping out in the living room. 00:32:30.060 |
And so I said, "Okay, this is not going to last long. How long?" 00:32:32.060 |
At some point, she's going to realize how hard it is to own a cat. 00:32:35.060 |
But each day, she would grow more fond of this cat, and then one day, they said, 00:32:41.060 |
They took them back to the foster place, and then they came back with two cats. 00:32:52.060 |
And they said, they took the cat back, and then they said, "The cat is lonely." 00:33:01.060 |
And they said, "Either you drop the cat off now, or you take another cat so that the cat won't be lonely." 00:33:12.060 |
Even before they showed me the cat, you could tell they were kind of looking at each other 00:33:16.060 |
to see how I was going to react, and they opened up the box, and two cats jumped out. 00:33:22.060 |
We went from fostering one cat to now two cats, and it was supposed to be two weeks. 00:33:28.060 |
Now we're into what? Our fifth? Going to six weeks? 00:33:32.060 |
And I said, "When is this going to end?" Right? 00:33:37.060 |
And so, I'm kind of thinking, at some point, they're going to give up. 00:33:41.060 |
And it wasn't just Faith. Faith recruited her mom, her younger brother Isaiah. 00:33:46.060 |
And so now, every day, when they're bored, they're in the room playing with the cat. 00:33:53.060 |
And so I get sucked up into that, and now I'm sitting there watching these two cats play. 00:33:57.060 |
And they are cute, but in the back of my mind, it's like, "Man, I got suckered." 00:34:04.060 |
And so I'm saying, "How long is this going to last?" 00:34:07.060 |
And Faith has gotten fond of this cat, and so did my wife and my son. 00:34:12.060 |
And Faith said, "You know, we're supposed to go to Korea next year, if it opens up, to visit. 00:34:18.060 |
How are you going to do that with these two cats?" 00:34:20.060 |
And she said, "I'd rather give up my trip so that I can have this cat." 00:34:27.060 |
I said, "Oh my gosh, you got suckered into this." 00:34:32.060 |
I can't. And it's not because I love the cats. They're cute. 00:34:38.060 |
I can get rid of them tomorrow if they weren't home, right? 00:34:45.060 |
But they have a sympathetic mediator, these two cats. 00:34:52.060 |
And not because I love these two cats, but because I love my daughter. 00:35:00.060 |
And let me say officially here, if you wanted to keep the cats, you can keep the cats. 00:35:10.060 |
We'll talk about Korea. We'll see what happens with Korea. 00:35:14.060 |
But they have a sympathetic--these two cats have a sympathetic high priest. 00:35:26.060 |
There's a story about this boy who wanted a dog. 00:35:31.060 |
And the parents decided to get him a dog for Christmas and went to the pet shop. 00:35:36.060 |
And the pet shop owner started bringing all these different animals to the boy. 00:35:42.060 |
And the boy would just say, "No, no, no, no, no." 00:35:44.060 |
And by the time they got through all the healthy dogs, they said, 00:35:47.060 |
"Well, how come you don't want any of these dogs? I thought you wanted a pet." 00:35:50.060 |
And he said, "Yeah, I'm looking for the right one. Do you have any other?" 00:35:53.060 |
So the pet shop owner said, "Well, we do have one, but I don't even want to show him to you 00:35:57.060 |
because for sure you're not going to want it." 00:36:01.060 |
So he goes to the back and brings this puppy out. 00:36:03.060 |
And the puppy was clearly--was not whole, was limping in. 00:36:08.060 |
And one of the legs was broken or could not use it, so it was limping in. 00:36:13.060 |
And this boy just ran and hugged it and said, "This is the one." 00:36:23.060 |
He said, "Every other person that came in here rejected this dog. Why do you want this dog?" 00:36:27.060 |
And so the boy just took his pants and he just started rolling it up to show that he had a wooden leg. 00:36:34.060 |
And so he said, "I want this dog because I can relate to this dog. 00:36:42.060 |
The Scripture says Christ came and became a sympathetic high priest 00:36:49.060 |
so that he's not just in the middle of logistically taking care of business. 00:36:54.060 |
He said, "I can relate to you, your suffering, your struggles." 00:36:59.060 |
The Scriptures--in church tradition, it says that Christ is a sympathetic high priest, 00:37:08.060 |
went through suffering, and it said possibly he may have lost his father when he was young. 00:37:12.060 |
That's why Joseph is not mentioned in the Gospel stories other than the beginning. 00:37:16.060 |
He knows what it means to be rejected. He knows what it means to be lonely. 00:37:22.060 |
His closest friends abandoning him at the greatest of need. 00:37:29.060 |
And he was tempted in every way, the Scripture says, and yet he was without sin. 00:37:34.060 |
And so as a result, he became the perfect mediator. 00:37:39.060 |
Mediator to do what? The third thing it says, to save us. 00:37:44.060 |
As it said in verse 21, Matthew chapter 1, he said he was going to come to save us from our sins. 00:37:52.060 |
Hebrews chapter 2, 14 to 18, "Therefore since the children share in flesh and blood, 00:37:57.060 |
he himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death he might render powerless 00:38:02.060 |
him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and might free those who through fear of death 00:38:10.060 |
Second Corinthians 5, 21, "He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, 00:38:14.060 |
so that we might become the righteousness of God in him." 00:38:19.060 |
And so he says, "Come, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, 00:38:24.060 |
that we have a high priest, the God of the universe, who took on human form, 00:38:29.060 |
to invite us, that I know your suffering, I know your hardship, 00:38:35.060 |
I know the difficulty of living in this fallen world, of broken relationships, of being rejected. 00:38:43.060 |
He knows this." So he says, "Come, because I know your suffering." 00:38:51.060 |
How much of our lives are being jumped around from place to place, relationship to relationship, 00:38:56.060 |
from job to job, seeking peace that they cannot give? 00:39:02.060 |
And so that's the reason the Bible says that he came, 1 Peter 2, 14, 00:39:06.060 |
"He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, 00:39:18.060 |
Now everything that I told you is what he's done. 00:39:27.060 |
He brought God to us, he became the perfect mediator, 00:39:30.060 |
and then he became the propitiation, atonement for our own sins. 00:39:34.060 |
But there's a greater question than that. Not what he's done, but why. 00:39:39.060 |
I can tell you the intricate details of what the Bible says about atonement. 00:39:45.060 |
I've been studying the Bible since 1983, and I've been preaching through the scriptures. 00:39:54.060 |
I read most of the commentaries from Genesis to Revelation. 00:39:58.060 |
So I can give you the background information and tell you what the passage means. 00:40:04.060 |
But the greatest mystery has become a greater mystery to me after all these years than ever. 00:40:14.060 |
I know what he did, but why would the God of the universe do that for me? 00:40:22.060 |
And the answer is simple, and yet so mysterious. 00:40:26.060 |
John 3.16, it says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, 00:40:34.060 |
that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." 00:40:44.060 |
Now, we may receive that and say, "Yeah, of course he loved us." 00:40:57.060 |
You know, we have a problem. If we were to go hunting, and the larger the animal is, the harder it is for us to kill. 00:41:05.060 |
We never think twice about killing a cockroach. 00:41:09.060 |
Because they're small, they're tiny, they seem insignificant, just by size. 00:41:16.060 |
Think how tiny the planet is in our universe, and in the galaxy. 00:41:21.060 |
And then all of it put together, think how tiny we are. 00:41:28.060 |
And that's why the psalmist says in Psalm 144, 3-4, 00:41:31.060 |
"Oh Lord, what is man that you take knowledge of him, or son of man, that you think of him? 00:41:35.060 |
Man is like a mere breath, his days are like passing shadow." 00:41:44.060 |
That mystery, that I could not comprehend, the day that I became a Christian, 00:41:49.060 |
is more mysterious to me today than it was 40 years ago. 00:41:54.060 |
I can tell you what he did. I can exposit the text to you, and say, "This is what happened. 00:41:59.060 |
This is what needs to be done. This is what confession looks like. 00:42:07.060 |
But I am more perplexed today than ever when he says, "He so loved the world." 00:42:18.060 |
That should engross all of us this Christmas season. 00:42:28.060 |
"See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us. 00:42:33.060 |
Behold how great the love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God. 00:42:38.060 |
And such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know him. 00:42:43.060 |
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. 00:42:48.060 |
We know that when he appears, we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is." 00:42:53.060 |
Everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself just as he is pure. 00:43:02.060 |
This love of God that compels us, renews us, changes us. 00:43:08.060 |
Either we don't believe this and we just walk away, 00:43:13.060 |
or we believe this and it changes everything. 00:43:19.060 |
You know, I grew up with three boys, as you guys know, 00:43:24.060 |
and I'm the middle child, and I'm the prototypical middle child. 00:43:29.060 |
So whenever they say middle child, it's like, yeah, that's me. I don't deny it. 00:43:33.060 |
I grew up thinking, like, nobody loves me, nobody cares for me, everything's unfair. 00:43:39.060 |
Why do I get targeted if my parents walk in and somebody's crying, it's my fault. 00:43:46.060 |
Whether that was true or not, that's how I felt growing up all my life. 00:43:51.060 |
I left the country that I was born in, came to the United States. 00:43:54.060 |
I don't fit here. We're in the East Coast, Midwest, the South, going back and forth. 00:43:59.060 |
And even though my dad was a pastor, I don't remember growing up in the youth group, 00:44:08.060 |
And so my greatest struggle inwardly is, like, I don't matter. 00:44:18.060 |
Everywhere we went, that was my primary struggle, and I was angry inwardly because I don't matter. 00:44:23.060 |
I remember thinking, if I disappear, no one's going to miss me. 00:44:27.060 |
And I remember thinking, if I disappear, I wonder how long it takes before somebody looks for me. 00:44:32.060 |
Now, all of this, looking back at it now as a parent, looking back at it as a child who was hurting. 00:44:45.060 |
And I'm sure some of you guys can relate to that. 00:44:47.060 |
Maybe some of you in this room may be feeling that way. 00:44:59.060 |
And so because that was my default setting, I was bitter about everything. 00:45:02.060 |
Every little thing that happened would set me off. 00:45:04.060 |
And when people would warn me, say, don't you care if you're going to go to jail or you're going to die? 00:45:20.060 |
And it wasn't this detailed explanation of the gospel and about exposition. 00:45:51.060 |
All I knew was the God of the universe loves me. 00:45:57.060 |
And everything that I was bitter at, I was looking to see. 00:46:05.060 |
But once I knew that I was loved by God, it changed everything. 00:46:11.060 |
All my bitterness, anger, feeling of not belonging anywhere, 00:46:16.060 |
instantaneously was answered by the love of Christ. 00:46:21.060 |
In Psalms 36.9, it says, "In your light, we see light." 00:46:26.060 |
It wasn't until I came out of the darkness and my eyes became open, I began to see. 00:46:31.060 |
Now, as an adult, I look at my parents and how much they had to put up with me. 00:46:37.060 |
And I can understand that as a father who's raised four children myself, 00:46:43.060 |
the difficulties and frailties and our own shortcomings, 00:46:47.060 |
and through all the trials that my parents went through, that they put up with me. 00:46:51.060 |
And I understood. It's like, "Oh, they did love me." 00:46:54.060 |
But I couldn't see that love until His love opened my eyes. 00:47:03.060 |
Until Christ comes and penetrates into our darkness. 00:47:07.060 |
Just like the song says, "Looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many faces." 00:47:14.060 |
It's a simple song, but that's a description of mankind that has fallen from the grace of God. 00:47:24.060 |
I cannot explain to you why He loves us, but He does. 00:47:30.060 |
And no other explanation makes any sense, other than the fact that He loves us, 00:47:39.060 |
So for those of us who are brothers and sisters in Christ, 00:47:43.060 |
when was the last time the love of Christ compelled you? 00:47:49.060 |
Look at your life, what you pursue, what you value, what makes you happy, what makes you sad. 00:47:55.060 |
How much of the love of Christ is in the midst of that? 00:48:00.060 |
Those of you who have been invited here as guests, 00:48:03.060 |
because your family and friends also wanted you to see and comprehend and understand the love of Christ. 00:48:11.060 |
That if this is true, doesn't this change everything? 00:48:15.060 |
Do you really think that all of this, everything that you've seen on this video, 00:48:18.060 |
everything that you've studied about mankind, do you really think that this was just an accident? 00:48:24.060 |
That everything that I'm saying, everything that you're thinking, all the relationships, 00:48:27.060 |
past, present, and future, this is all an accident? 00:48:31.060 |
Or just like Einstein and the majority of the scientists, that could there be a God behind all of this? 00:48:38.060 |
And if there is a God, could it be that this God wants to have a relationship with us? 00:48:46.060 |
That's what the gospel is. A holy God, for whatever the reason, who loved us, took on human form. 00:48:56.060 |
He humbled himself. Not only did he become a man, he humbled himself to the point of being crucified on the cross, 00:49:03.060 |
to take our sin upon himself, and he offers his salvation to all mankind. 00:49:08.060 |
He who confesses his sins is faithful and just to forgive us of all our unrighteousness. 00:49:15.060 |
Only he can make you righteous. You cannot do good enough to pay off the sins of the past. 00:49:22.060 |
Only Christ and his blood can cover us and forgive us and renew us. 00:49:27.060 |
So the offer of salvation ultimately is an offer of his love for you. 00:49:33.060 |
So our prayer this morning is that you would open your heart to God as well, to receive him. 00:49:41.060 |
He is real. He's not somebody that just made it. It's not philosophers. It's not the disciples who wanted attention for themselves. 00:49:49.060 |
He is real. He died and he was resurrected on the third day to prove his love for us, to prove his identity. 00:49:59.060 |
And he says the reason why he hasn't come back is because he's being patient, 00:50:03.060 |
because he wants more of us to come to Christ, so that one day when he comes back, 00:50:09.060 |
that we would be restored in this love relationship with him for eternity. 00:50:14.060 |
Would you make that decision for him? Come to Christ. 00:50:20.060 |
Maybe you've heard him from a distance. Maybe you've mentally acknowledged him like I did when I was younger, 00:50:26.060 |
but I never really knew him. Would you consider to humble yourself before the Lord? 00:50:34.060 |
Lord, I'm a sinner and I'm in need of forgiveness. Would you forgive me of my sins? 00:50:44.060 |
We pray that this morning that if you have any interest in knowing Christ, 00:50:50.060 |
maybe you've been to church all your life and you've only seen him from a distance. 00:50:54.060 |
You've acknowledged him, but you don't know him. 00:50:58.060 |
So we pray that you take this opportunity this Christmas to really dwell upon the magnitude of what Emmanuel means, 00:51:07.060 |
So after service, our outreach team has set up a booth outside. 00:51:11.060 |
Our pastor, Mark, is going to be out there. He's going to give a short summary presentation of the gospel. 00:51:17.060 |
And if you have any questions and you just want to be there, there are some snacks there as well. 00:51:22.060 |
We invite you, if you've been brought with friends and you just have questions about that, 00:51:28.060 |
we invite you to go and visit that area and they'll be able to answer any kind of questions that you have. 00:51:33.060 |
And then for the rest of us to really commit to make this Christmas season about Christ, 00:51:39.060 |
to think deeply about what it is that we confess so that our life and our confession would be consistent. 00:51:46.060 |
So at this time, we're going to ask our—we have a special presentation this morning. 00:51:51.060 |
So as they come and get set up, okay, so think about the lyrics that they're going to be singing as we watch them. 00:51:58.060 |
So I'm going to pray for us as they set up, and then I hope that you will meditate and be blessed by it. 00:52:05.060 |
Heavenly Father, we pray that your word would have a deep impact in our hearts. 00:52:19.060 |
Save us, Lord God, from the sins of this world, from our temptations. 00:52:26.060 |
Lord Jesus, I cannot begin to comprehend why you volunteer to take my punishment. 00:52:40.060 |
All we can do is to say thank you and praise you. 00:52:48.060 |
I pray that as you are merciful with us, that you would be merciful, Lord God, to anyone else in this room, 00:53:00.060 |
That the powerful love that you showed us would continue to spread not only here, but everywhere you go.