Tension and Transition

Summary:

The commercialization of Advent is critiqued, highlighting the prevalence of advent calendars and holiday consumerism. The text urges a return to the true meaning of Advent, focusing on Jesus Christ and understanding God's eternal patience and plan. It delves into theological ideas like God's presence in creation and Jesus as the Word, encouraging harmonious living with God and others.

A central theme is humility and service, drawing inspiration from Philippians 2, which describes Jesus's example. The sermon encourages emulating Christ's selflessness, valuing others, and earnestly working out one's salvation. The message concludes with a call for reflection and prayer, aiming to renew faith and embody hope, endurance, and love.

Transcript:

Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Jonathan. I get to be a pastor here at Journey. I want to just take a moment and say welcome to each one today gathered here, whether you are with us in person or online. We are very thankful for your presence here. You being here today is significant and meaningful, and I want to make sure that we acknowledge that, because we do not take it for granted. Today is a big day for us.

It is the first Sunday on the church calendar. It's gonna save my life here and not step on a tack. So if you want to be a church nerd and wish everyone a happy new year, by all means, do that, and you will be received well here, at least. Try not to do that at the restaurant. They'll look at you funny. Today also is the first Sunday of Advent, which is the celebration leading up to Christmas, the four Sundays that we get to spend in anticipation of Jesus. And we'll dive into that a little bit more here in a moment.

Also, this Sunday is the Sunday following Thanksgiving. And for me and my family, our plans did not pan out. We had to call some audibles last minute, but we were able to make the most of it and spend time with family, which was a beautiful thing. And I hope that this past week, no matter how your week turned out, that you had some moments to be grateful and to spend around those who you love most. And it's a great way to begin the Advent season. As we celebrate Advent together as a church family, we have printed a guide for you to celebrate Advent at home. For those of you who have picked up a copy of this prior to this morning, you need to take that guide and throw it in the trash and get a new guide for you.

I am ashamed to admit it, but sometimes I overlook things and make mistakes. So normally at the beginning of our gathering, we say perfection is a myth, which by the way, just so you are all aware, my family went yesterday to see Moana and they quoted us in that movie, Moana. They say exactly perfection is a myth.

Twice they say it. So Disney needs to quote us for that somehow. But pick up a new guide. They're back on the table. The other guide will get the job done, but it's just a little bit confusing with some of the dates and how they were planned on there. So don't forget to do that on your way out. And if you didn't have one prior to today, well, then you won't notice my mistakes.

So you can just pick one up and take it home with you for that. So the season of Advent, contrary to popular opinion, is not a countdown to Christmas. It is not a countdown to Christmas. Instead, it is a season in and of itself, a time for us as the church and as individuals to slow down, to be present, and to allow the spirit of Jesus to settle deep down into our bones, which maybe for today the spirit of Jesus will warm us up because it's pretty chilly in here.

And I apologize about that. We'll try to get that resolved for next week. So during the season of Advent, we seek to move a bit slower that the presence of Jesus would capture our attention and draw us into the kingdom of God, which Jesus proclaimed is at hand. Therefore, we look to the one who was and is and is to come. In 1 Corinthians chapter 16 verse 22, we find this simple prayer, just three words, Our Lord come. And so today as we transition into a conversation on hope, I want us to pause for a moment, maybe take a deep breath or two, and just simply pray that prayer. Come, Lord.

Our Lord, come. You could pray, come, Lord Jesus. You could pray, come, Holy Spirit. But just take a moment this morning of pause and invite God to capture our attention today. Our Lord, Jesus, we pray today that you would capture our attention. God, for many of us, we are entering into a season that puts a lot of demands on us, extra demands of time, gifts to buy, cards to send, and though a lot of that brings us joy, it can also bring with it stress or anxiousness, nervousness, distraction. And so, God, as we attempt to slow down this Advent season, we pray that you would give us the gift of your Spirit in fresh and new ways to the glory of your name. Amen. Throughout the generations, as people have prayed that prayer, Our Lord, come.

Come, Holy Spirit. As people have waited on the Lord, there have been many instances where God revealed a promise to individuals and to communities of people. And almost always those promises are followed with a time of waiting, either for the arrival of what was promised or for that promise to be fulfilled. And while it might bend our minds a bit and it might get us a little bit frustrated, one of the ways that we can discern God's promises is by waiting between the time the promise was offered and the time that it has been fulfilled. Most commonly, when God captures our attention, when God captures the attention in the story of the scriptures, God makes a promise and then does the slow and deep work of shaping and forming people's lives into lives that are in sync with his kingdom. Now that probably does not sit well in our 21st century click a button and it shows up on your doorstep a few moments later society. The other day we ordered something and went to bed.

I ordered it on Amazon at like eight o'clock, I think, and went to bed and woke up and it was there before we even got out of bed, right? Things happen in our society at an instant now and we don't like to wait. Well, I won't speak for us. Does anyone like to wait? Anybody? No, right? We don't like to wait, but the waiting is the time in which God is able to form and shape us.

And if we are going to live in the ways of Jesus, then we have to learn to wait. We can't settle for instant happening. We can't settle for just trying to make things happen at our pace. We have to learn to wait. And throughout church history, throughout the scriptures, as people have waited, there has become a tradition of taking all of the anticipation, all of the hopes, all of the desires, all of the trust in God, and bottling it up in a prayer or a song. In the Bible, there are about 185 of these songs. In the Old Testament and New, from Hannah to Elizabeth to Mary, they take these promises of God and put them in the form of a song.

And most of these songs have a very similar theme to them. And it's a theme that aligns the promises that God made to the people with what has been spoken, the truth that has been spoken, about the kingdom of God. And it's also important to note that these songs, as they were written, for the most part, are not simply for the individual singing them or writing them, but for the community surrounding them, for the nation around them, for the people in their neighborhoods. And here are some components of most of these promises. Number one, God is with the broken. Today, if your heart is heavy, if you feel broken, God is near to the broken. Another element of these prayers is that God does justice on behalf of the poor. And not just justice as in, we're going to give you a handout, but justice as in true justice that blesses the poor with the Spirit of God and fills them in ways that they have never been filled before.

God lifts up those who are down, those who are on the underside of oppression, for whatever reason, God lifts them up in his promises. And God holds accountable the high and mighty. If you take those four patterns and you spend this afternoon looking through the songs written in scripture, you will see that most of them contain these four elements. So as we wait, we join in with these ancient voices in a cry out to God, God, may we be recipients of your kingdom here and now. Lead us to work on behalf of those to whom you call us. That's the prayer of the church in this advent season. So for us here locally at Journey, we're doing something that I am particularly excited about.

We are going to work our way through the advent story by a collection of modern songs that are sung by one of my favorite artists, Andrew Peterson. He wrote an album, I think 25 years ago, but the album is called Behold the Lamb of God and it is a fantastic portrayal of the story of Jesus's arrival and waiting for his return. And my hope, our hope, is that these accompanying songs will help illustrate the promises of God and how they guide our lives on earth each day. So before we get into speaking about hope, I want to talk briefly about the experience of advent or the celebration of advent and what it is. The word itself means arrival. If you were waiting for guests to arrive for Thanksgiving, for your Thanksgiving feast, you were waiting for the advent of your guests, right? That is the way in which that word is most typically used, for the arrival of something.

In our case, the arrival of the person Jesus born of the Virgin Mary, which we celebrate on Christmas, but also to fulfill the promise of his arrival as he returns, both returning in our lives daily as we seek to live into the rhythms of the kingdom of God and ultimately in Christ's return as king. So advent is this space of both celebrating what was, what is, what is to come, and also to wait. It's interesting to me, if you just do a simple Google search, that capitalism in our country knows no bounds. And there has even been a movement to capitalize off of the season of advent. I've got some examples for you here. If you are in the market for chocolate, you can find an advent chocolate calendar where each day of December you can pull out a box and find a good piece of chocolate. One for each day.

If chocolate's not your thing, skincare products. How about that? You can find an advent calendar for skincare products. Maybe you need a little bit of moisturizing or some firming going on. I'm sure you could find that in one of those days. For those of you who spend too much time in the sun and don't care about your skin, you can find an advent calendar of fishing lures. One fishing lure for each day of December leading up to Christmas.

And because in our society, we don't just see things through human eyes. We want to make sure that we bless our animals as well. You can get an advent dog calendar for his treats to give to him. So advent for everybody. We can all celebrate that. Now, these are a little silly. If you have one of these, you know, no judgment to you, certainly.

But it's interesting when we think about this. We have to be careful that we make sure we understand what is the purpose of these holidays. You think about Thanksgiving. You offer thanks all day and then you wake up early on the next day and you run over people in order to get the best deal at Walmart and save a few dollars. We think about Christmas and how every single ad about Christmas from September to December is about getting something new. That thing you always wanted that will fulfill you. And there's nothing wrong with giving gifts.

There's nothing wrong with saving money and getting good deals. There is something wrong with trampling people. So don't do that. But we have to be wise as we navigate the kingdom of God and the culture that is around us. The season of advent is about the Lord Jesus Christ full stop. And it's about the power and death that is undone by this infant born in glory as David and John sang about earlier. This story of Jesus and Jesus's arrival is a story of old that is so beautiful and true that it literally changed the future of the world.

The arrival of Jesus born of the Virgin Mary and the promise of his return as the rightful and just king to his throne of earth. But in advent, we don't rush through the story. We participate in the waiting and in the eager expectation for Jesus to be revealed. This might be kind of a strange thing to think about, but I want you this morning to consider the patience of God. The patience of God. God is eternally patient. Let's think about that for a moment. Eternally patient.

Both patience towards us as people. But how many times do we come to God with our hat and our hand and, you know, we kind of start out saying, yes, God, it's me again. And, you know, I am in need of your grace or I am in need of your forgiveness. And even though we know in our minds that God has already forgiven us, that God is just and faithful and forgives us every time because God is eternally patient towards us, we still find ourselves in that mode of, you know, being downcast. Dom Gillirend, I think is his name if I can remember it correctly, a church writer, wrote, not to be downcast after committing a fault is a sign of true sanctity. In other words, meaning that God has forgiven us and we should rest and rely on God's forgiveness, not on our ability to perform. And that in and of itself is a sign of sanctity.

So God is eternally patient towards us, but God is also patient towards the world. Just think about the patience of God in thinking about the world. Also, we need to know when we think about God's patience is that Jesus was not God's plan B. Jesus was not God's plan B. Jesus was present from the beginning. And I'm going to show you where that comes from this morning. Now, as we, if you want to flip in your Bibles or look up on your phone to Genesis chapter 1, as we're getting there, I want to make note that the original writers of Genesis 1 did not connect these dots, but I'm going to show you how we connect them today.

But Genesis chapter 1, verses 1 through 3, here's what it says. In the beginning, God, all right, so we see God the creator in the beginning, created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, let there be light. And there was light. Now, it's easy for us to see God the father, God the creator, right?

And the first sentence, it's easy for us to see God the spirit, as it says, the spirit of God hovered over the waters. We have to dig a little bit to understand Jesus is present, but Jesus is present because God spoke, and spoke, let there be light, and there is a mention of Jesus. Now, you might say, well, Jonathan, is that really true? We don't have to take Jonathan's word for it. You can take John's word for it. We'll flip to John chapter 1, beginning in verse 1. Here's what he says about it.

In the beginning was the Word, and that word is capitalized because that is a proper noun referring to Jesus, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. So, from the outset of Scripture, we see the fingerprints of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit creating and sustaining the world.

God's desire from the very beginning was that people would live in peace and harmony, peace and harmony with God, peace and harmony with themselves, with one another, and with the world around them. Now, of course, we know in our own lives, and we know from reading Scripture, we know from reading history, that people are prone to wander. People are prone to settle for ways and that take instead of give. People are prone to deception that convinces us to dehumanize our neighbors. That's why we have to be on guard. That's why we can't just go through life accepting things as they are, but we have to examine and evaluate according to the ways of Jesus and the kingdom of God so that we can understand what we are doing, and why we are doing it, and how that aligns with the story of God. And as we think about our own lives, and we think about how many times we've failed, and we study history, and we think about all the times people have failed, or nations have failed, and the atrocities that have been committed, we might start to wonder why God doesn't just wipe the slate clean.

There have been moments in my life where I thought, God, that would just be much easier if you would just be done with it, and we could all move on one way or another. But that is our impulse to control and to hurry. That's not God. That's not God's approach. That is how we might see things, but not how God does. And aren't we glad that, in contrast to our haste, God has an eternal patience. As we think about that, here are some questions for us to consider.

Can you imagine a love so sincere that it can never be exhausted? A love that can never be exhausted. Can you imagine a patience so long that it never grows thin? Can you imagine a direction so true that it can never be thwarted? That is the kingdom of God. And this is the truth that we are seeking to live into during this season of Advent, and it is in this love and patience and direction that we find hope. So the song that David sang, Gather Round Ye Children, Come, has a line in the chorus that says, Sing out with joy for the brave little boy who was God, and he made himself nothing.

This chorus beautifully depicts this love that can't be exhausted, this patience that can't grow thin, this direction that can't be thwarted. In that simple words, sing out with joy for the brave little boy who was God, and he made himself nothing. Our hope today, as we light the candle of hope, as we talk about hope in the season of Advent, our hope is in Jesus's Our hope is in Jesus's descent. In our culture, we admire and promote those who shoot first and ask questions later, right? Those are all of our American heroes. They're not people who had patience that would not grow thin. They were people who pulled out their six guns and just started shooting everything that they could get in their sights, right?

We think in our culture that power is coming riding in on a white horse and forcing or using your might to make things right. But that's not the story of God that we read in the person of Jesus, and it's not what we celebrate in Advent. Instead of those ideas about power and success, God goes to the bottom, and it's from the bottom of things that Jesus lives and breathes and exemplifies the kingdom of God in human form. As we wrap up this conversation today, I want to read to you Paul's instructions to us as the church for imitating this way of Jesus, imitating Christ's humility. And here's what Paul says in Philippians chapter 2, Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves.

Not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interest of others, and your relationships with one another. Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. I remember we said our hope is in Jesus's descent. Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used for his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue acknowledged Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. God's direction is to the bottom of things. Jesus's destination was to take on the form of a human being. Now, I know that we are all taught how beautiful and wonderful we are, but compared to God, right, we are nothing. For God to become human is definitely a step down. So God descended into the form of a human being. But not only that, Jesus humbled himself to be a servant, right?

To serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. And in doing so, in Jesus's faithfulness in this, he revealed salvation to us, not only individually, not just my salvation or your salvation, but the salvation of the world. And in light of this, Paul's instructions to us are to work out our salvation in fear and trembling. So we wait, and as we wait for God to be revealed, we don't count down the minutes. We don't just rush through. We seek to be present, to love God, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Our hope is in Jesus's descent, and our calling is to live as he instructed us.

I'm gonna invite David and John up to sing one more song with us today. And as they do that, I want to encourage all of us to posture our heart in prayer and reflection. Today, for some of us, maybe the light of Jesus is flickering a bit in our lives. Maybe it's even growing dim. Maybe, for some of us, it even has been snuffed out. If you find yourself feeling that today, I want you to spend some time in these next moments to invite the Spirit, to capture your attention, and to fan the flame or ignite the flame of Jesus in your life again. For some of us, maybe life is just feeling down and difficult and heavy at the moment, and we need for the hope of Jesus to fill whatever the situation is that we are facing.

I want you to spend a moment, if that is you, and just invite Jesus to give you that hope today to endure. Maybe, for others of us, the flame is lit, the life is going okay, but we need that encouragement to learn to love our neighbors as ourselves. If that's you today, pray that the Spirit will fan the flame of your heart to help you to love neighbors as yourself. And if you're somewhere in between or beyond all of that, invite Jesus to capture your heart today, to ignite His Spirit in your life. Jesus, we are here.

We are yours. Whatever you desire, work in our lives today.