“The Outsider Who Became an Insider”

John 1:14

1. Read John 1:14-18
2. before this passage I feel like…
® Jr high art student before a Rembrandt masterpiece
® High school garage guitarist listening to U2’s The Edge
® Ranch Hills golfer playing in the Masters at Augusta
3. I can only scratch the surface of this passage this morning. I hope & pray that God will honor my scratching by grabbing your hearts minds wills & emotions.
4. prayer

Gift
1. the one thing that marks Christmas in our culture is giving. The National Retail Federation estimates that the average consumer will spend $700 on Christmas gifts this year. Have you ever carefully bought a friend a Christmas gift that they absolutely refused to accept?

2. this week a friend of mine brought a homeless man from Canby to the church so he could use our shower. He hadn’t showered since summer. The 1st thing this man asked me when he saw our shower was – do you have hot water? I said yes. He told me his feet were numb – his shoes & thin, worn-out socks were wet.

3. Ronell Warner, Executive Director of The Canby Center who has an office here, put together a large bag of socks, gloves, scarf & toiletries for him. My friend brought him some clean, dry clothes. He left freshly showered, dressed in clean clothes, with new warm socks, scarf & gloves.

4. this homeless man has a homeless friend who was invited to come for a shower & help BUT he refused to come. The gift was offered but he passed on it.
5. there is a sense in which all of us are like these 2 homeless men, spiritually speaking. In desperate straits. Hungry. Cold. Dirty. Needy. And without access to a hot shower, clean clothes, new socks & gloves. We can’t do for ourselves what we need done for us. Someone from the outside has to help.

6. and this is what Christmas is all about. NOT giving $700 of gifts to one another. BUT God giving us the invaluable gift of his Son Jesus Christ. Savior of this cold, needy, hungry, dirty world. The gift is offered – are we going to accept it or pass on it?

7. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. This is the story of the outsider who became an insider.

Word
1. Word is one of God’s names. Of this Word John says –
® 1:1 - eternal (in the beginning)
® 1:1 - God (was God)
® 1:3 - maker of all things
® 1:4 - brings life & light to what he has made
® 1:10-11 - not recognized or received when he came
® 1:12 - to those who believe in him he makes them his children

2. the fact that God names himself Word tells us something very important. Words are used to communicate. Languages, paragraphs, sentences, expressions depend upon words.

3. God the Word is a communicator, a talker. God the Word has spoken to us. In the Word God speaks. We’d better listen to this Word.

Flesh
1. in the Greek language of the New Testament flesh is a salty, earthy word. Flesh here means flesh & blood, the body, a human being. Literally, God the Word became a body, a person. The outsider became an insider.

2. Scot McKnight calls this God’s absolute identity with us. God became what we are. Human in every sense of the word except without sin.

3. Jesus the Word is fully God & fully human. And that’s the mystery we ponder in this season of Advent & Christmas.

Made his dwelling among us
1. made his dwelling is the word for tabernacle or tent. In the Old Testament the presence of God was established 1st in the tent of meeting while the children of Israel were in the dessert. Then in the tabernacle. Then in the temple. Then in the flesh & blood of Jesus his Son. Now in us as the temple of God, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.

2. In Jesus God pitched his tent among us. He tabernacled himself in a human body. I love how this is rendered in The Message – The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.

3. God is local. Among us. This is the genius of the gospel. God makes the 1st move. He comes to us, localized in the flesh & blood of Jesus.

4. high school, beginning of college was a hard time for me. Conflicts with my parents. Hating church. Slippery attempts to find my social niche. I felt like my parents just didn’t understand what it was like to be me.

5. if only my dad could have jumped into my skin & spent a day with me to…
® feel my baffling emotions
® face my alluring temptations
® encounter my raging hormones
® experience my apathy & boredom in class

2. but it was impossible for my dad to crawl inside my skin.

Good news
1. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. God has done what my dad couldn’t do. He has crawled inside our skin. He’s entered into our world & experience. NOT as a spectator BUT as a participant.

2. I remember once in Mexico talking to a taxi driver in Puerto Vallarta. He was driving us to a restaurant. He was married with 3 children. He worked 12-14 hour days. Seldom got a day off. Just to support his family at poverty level. He was exhausted. I tried to empathize with him, tried to put myself in his place. But I couldn’t. I was a spectator of his life NOT a participant in it.

3. God the Word became flesh in Jesus to participate in our lives. But why? Did God do this out of boredom, curiosity, as an experiment? He did it out of rescuing love. John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

4. believes is the operative word here. You believe in your mind & heart that Jesus is God & lived & died & rose from the dead for your sins. You confess with your lips that he is your Savior & Lord. And you follow that up with the very way you live your life 24/7, every day, all the time. You live for Jesus & not for yourself. This is called the gospel, the good news.

Three ways to live
1. according to Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, there are 3 ways to live our lives. Religion. Irreligion. Gospel.
2. Religious people strive to live a good life. God will accept me because I’m a good person.

3. The Irreligious or secular person says I can live my life however I want as long as I don’t hurt anyone.

4. Both the religious & secular person, as different as they are from each other, are their own Savior & Lord. They save themselves by how they live.

5. The Gospel is radically different from both. Jesus is Savior & Lord. He saves us. We can’t save ourselves. We are saved by grace alone, faith alone, his death alone.

6. Religion stresses truth or holiness. This is how you must live to be saved. But its truth without grace. And truth without grace is moralism. Too hard, sharp, too dogmatic, too black & white.

7. Irreligion or secularism stresses love or grace. The secular person says it’s all about love. Love includes all. Love is tolerant of all. But love without truth is relativism. Too soft, sentimental, schmaltzy.

8. what we get in the Word became flesh is the gospel. In the gospel grace & truth are united in Jesus Christ. He is full of grace and truth (14); grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (17).

9. grace informs us that we are treated better than we deserve to be. We don’t have to answer for our sin. God forgives us by his death on the cross & resurrection from the dead. Truth informs us that a penalty must be paid for our sin & Jesus paid it. And Jesus the Word doesn’t just point us to the truth but is the Living Truth. Truth is a person.

10. Jesus is not full of the news of grace and truth – grace & truth are full in him. He is grace & truth. Truthful grace & graceful truth.

Response
1. in the life, death & resurrection of Jesus from the dead, we are loved by God. Ours is to embrace & believe that we are. Ours is to invite Jesus to be our Savior. Ours is to give our lives to Jesus.

2. and when we do we are showered, we are washed clean, we are given new spiritual clothes, we are given new hope for the present & the future. Christmas is about turning religious & irreligious people into gospel people.

3. pray with me…..




Music I listened to while sermonizing – Eagles; Brian Doerksen; Handel; Sarah McLachlan; Over the Rhine; U2

Books I read & studied while sermonizing – The Intimate Merton by Thomas Merton; The Road by Cormac McCarthy; The Living Church by John Stott; The Shack by William P. Young; The Rhythm of Life: Celtic Daily Prayer by David Adam;

Series: Waiting #3 “Waiting Not Wasted”

Luke 2:21-38

1. our Advent theme this year is waiting. Waiting is a universal human experience. What do we know about waiting…when it comes to the kitchen? Here is a picture of Josephine Sesay’s kitchen in Sierra Leone (pw. pt slides):
® outside the house in the backyard
® the floor is hard-packed dirt
® the food preparation area is a simple lean-to
® no electricity, natural gas, running water
® she cooks over an open fire
® meals take 2-3 hours to prepare from start to finish

2. compare to the kitchens in our homes. The easily available food we can purchase at from7am–11pm 7 days a week at local grocery stores. The pre-packaged food we can buy at Costco, bring home, pop in the microwave & eat within minutes. Progress & technology have shrunk the amount of time it takes to prepare meals in our culture.

3. I have a theory – as the pace of life & technology quickens, I believe our spiritual attention span diminishes. The ‘speed’ of our culture affects how we perceive the ‘speed’ of God’s work in our lives. We have come to expect:
® microwave-like spiritual transformation
® text messaging-like answers to prayer
® pre-packaged-like change to ripple through the years-in-the-making dysfunctional areas of our lives

4. and when God doesn’t act lighting quick, we ask:
® where is God?
® does prayer really matter?
® is faith all that important?
® when is God going to sign up for DSL?
5. but all throughout the Bible we find people waiting. Today we’re going to look at 2 people who waited their whole lives for something – Anna & Simeon.

Simeon (2:25-35)
1. in regards to human relationships Simeon was righteous. He was a man of integrity. In regards to God he was devout. He was a God follower & lover. Simeon fulfilled the Great Commandment to love God & love one’s neighbor.

2. Next Simeon was waiting for the consolation of Israel, the birth of the Messiah (25). Here’s our word ‘waiting.’ Simeon waited his whole life for this, probably 60-70 years!

3. the conditions he waited in were less than perfect:
® Jewish loss of political independence to Rome
® cruel reign of King Herod
® legalistic Scribes & Pharisees who reduced devotion to God to keeping an index of rules
® the 400 year silence of God following the prophet Malachi

4. Simeon did not give up hope. He lived in prayerful expectancy.

5. going on, Simeon is described by the activity of the Holy Spirit in his life. 1st the Holy Spirit was upon him. He lived in constant communion with the Spirit.

6. 2nd the Spirit revealed something to Simeon – that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ = Messiah. The Spirit had told him he was going to see the Messiah before he died. He was given a vision of the future.

7. 3rd the Spirit directed Simeon – moved by the Spirit he went into the temple courts. Klaus Bochmuehl, Simeon receives immediate directives from the Holy Spirit, so specific that he is at the right place at the right moment to see the baby Jesus and recognize him as God’s Messiah.

8. Simeon was a Spirit-driven man. The Spirit was upon him. Revealed to him. Moved him. God pours out his Spirit upon those who are righteous & devout, those who love him & love others.

9. Simeon takes the baby Messiah Jesus in his arms & prays (The Message):
God, you can now release your servant
Release me in peace as you promised
With my own eyes I’ve seen your salvation
It’s now out in the open for everyone to see
A God-revealing light to the non-Jewish nations
And of glory for your people Israel

10. a note of reality is struck – not everyone is going to accept this little baby as the Messiah. Suffering lies ahead. To Mary a sword will pierce your own soul too (35). A prophetic word about Jesus’ crucifixion & Mary’s suffering.

Anna (2:36-38)
1. the 1st thing we learn about Anna is that she as a prophetess (36). Others – Miriam (Ex 15:20); Deborah (Judges 4:4); Huldah (2 Kings 22:14); daughters of Philipp (Acts 21:9). The word of the Lord had not been heard for 400 years. Into this void steps Anna.

2. Anna was married for 7 years, then widowed, then married herself to God & the temple. She worshiped, fasted & prayed till she was 84 years old. She gave her life totally & without reservation to God. Her concern for others, the Kingdom of God, the situation of the world – she gave to God in prayer. For years on end!

3. upon seeing Simeon take Jesus in his arms & hearing what he said about him, she recognized that this baby was the object of her longing. She spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem (38). Same as Simeon’s consolation of Israel, yet another way to speak of the Messiah! She became one of the 1st witnesses of Christ.

Simeon & Anna life lessons
1. I want to conclude with 3 lessons about waiting from Simeon & Anna & 1 comment about age.

2. 1st in waiting we have to have something to look forward to. Both had a vision of the future – a longing for the appearance of the Messiah. They had hope. Waiting is possible if you have something significant to hope for.

3. I just picked up a book about a priest who was sent to Dachau (concentration camp) by the Nazis during WWII. The prisoners who gave up hope died. Those who struggled fiercely to hold onto hope survived.

4. 2nd in waiting we are helped by practicing spiritual disciplines. Simeon was devout. His life was God-focused. He cultivated the presence of the Holy Spirit in his life.

5. Anna worshiped, fasted & prayed. As we would say today, they practiced spiritual disciplines or habits. They did things they kept them connected to God in their waiting.

6. 3rd in waiting we have to make sure that God is more important than the object of our waiting. Year after year after year they waited. Political & social upheaval did not deter them. Religious ritual & rigidity didn’t trip them up. Growing older didn’t take the wind out of their sails. Why? Because they kept their supreme focus on God.

7. Richard Foster writes that waiting is right at the heart of Christian spirituality. Think of Moses waiting in the desert for silent year after year. Think of Elijah, sequestered in his cave, keeping a lonely vigil over earthquake, wind, and fire. Think of Mary waiting patiently for the fulfillment of the word of the Angel Gabriel. Think of Saul – Saul who became Paul – being instructed by the Spirit in the deserts of Arabia for three solitary years.

8. we learn things in waiting that can’t be learned in any other way. Waiting is God’s attempt to deepen us spiritually. To increase our faith & trust. To wean us from instant gratification & selfish wants. Waiting acts to purify motives & increase humility.

9. and finally a comment about age.

10. Simeon & Anna remind us to highly value & respect older people in a culture that increasingly worships youthfulness. Our culture is enamored with youth. We spend billions of dollars each year to try to fool people about our age – clothes, make-up, work outs, Botox, nose jobs.

11. in the marketplace the young are promoted while the old are pushed aside.

12. even in the church. When searches are made for a new pastor the majority of churches look for a young pastor – someone in their 30s-40s. Youth & energy are valued over wisdom & experience.

13. some of you remember Dave Scrimgeour. He was our part-time pastor of senior adults for 10 years. He left in 1999. We talked on the phone a few weeks ago.

14. Dave is 91 & attends Paradise Alliance Church with Dorothy, his new wife of 4 years. He teaches a Bible class on Sunday morning. He leads a cell group in their home during the week. And this year he’s been asked to preach 4 times to this church of 500-600 people. He sent me a CD of his last sermon. I listened in amazement – the structure, his thought processes, illustrations, passion, theological depth. God is still using this 91 year old Spirit-driven Scrimgeour.

15. as we wait let’s keep our hope alive, practice our spiritual disciplines & keep our primary focus on God. And let’s learn to value & honor the older Christ-followers among us.

Music I listened to while sermonizing – Over the Rhine; Cold Play; Sarah McLachlan; Sufjan Stevens; Frank Sinatra

Books I read & studied while sermonizing – The Intimate Merton by Thomas Merton; The Road by Cormac McCarthy; Listening to the God who Speaks by Klaus Bockmuehl; Luke by Darrell Bock; The Gospel of Luke by William Hendriksen; The Living Church by John Stott

Series: Waiting #2: “Waiting Matched With Creating”

Shollenberger clan lighting the 2nd Advent Candle to honor the birth of Christ

Today's Message

Text: Isaiah 42:1-9

1. what do we know of waiting?
Þ I have to wait another year for the Ducks to get revenge against the Beavers in the Civil War (my hat goes off to the black & orange)
Þ we have to wait 1 more year to see who is going to be our next President
Þ we wait to discover what we’re going to get for Christmas
Þ we wait 6 more days to get married if we’re Amanda & Luke
Þ you wait for me to quit preaching so you can snag the best cup of coffee in town out in the Great Hall

2. the Bible is a book woven together in all of its parts by waiting. Not just for days or weeks or months or years BUT sometimes for centuries & occasionally for millenniums.

a word about history
1. God does not work in a vacuum. He works in history. Our history. He reveals himself & acts in history.

2. for example – the birth of Jesus split history in two. John 1:14: the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. God came into our world. Drank earth’s water & wine. Ate earth’s bread & fish. Slept on earth’s hard ground. Sailed on earth’s rough seas. Rubbed shoulders with earth’s children women men.

3. the story we live in begins with creation. It charts a path through God’s covenant with Abraham that Kyle touched on last week. Next follows the exodus from Egypt under Moses’ leadership. Then the kingdom led by David at its apex of power & wealth. Life was good under David’s rule. The economy was strong. Jerusalem mailed out kicker checks.
Enemies were kept at bay.

4. and then things began to unravel. Opposing parties developed. The country divided. Bad kings ruled. Prophets were raised up to summon the people to live as God’s chosen & blessed. In 722 BC Assyria slid down from the north, & defeated the northern kingdom, Israel.

5. in 586 BC the southern kingdom, Judah, fell to Babylon. City & temple destroyed. People carted off into exile. Freed 70 years later to return to ghost town-like conditions in Jerusalem.

Isaiah (740-681 BC)
1. Isaiah spoke words of warning, judgment & mercy to dull ears. Though he lived & spoke around 700 BC, the last third of his message, chapters 40-66, were fast forwarded 120 years to 586 BC & beyond.

2. the time of Babylon & Nebuchadnezzar. Fierce soldiers on muscular horses marched into Jerusalem. Wacked the people into submission & others into the grave. City walls were knocked down, homes & buildings burned. The temple, Solomon’s majestic temple, was laid down on its side in dust & ruins.

3. Eugene Peterson – (the people of God) were force-marched across 600 miles of desert to eke out a bare exilic existence in a strange land. They had nothing. They were stripped not only of their possessions but of their very identity as a people of God. They were uprooted and plunked down in a foreign and idolatrous society.

4. Isaiah spoke God’s Word into this hopelessness, this holocaust. He spoke new words of a new day and a new time for the people of God. All was not lost. It was time to dust off God’s promises & hold them high for all to see.

Waiting matched by creating – Isaiah 42:1-9 = Servant
1. Eugene Peterson – the verb ‘create’ is our Bibles is used exclusively of God. Men, women, and angels don’t create. Only God creates.

2. the most frequent use of the verb ‘create’ in the Old Testament is NOT in the creation account BUT in Isaiah’s prophetic ministry to the exiled people of God in the 6th century BC.

3. Isaiah’s message: the Spirit of God is going to create life out of nothing for the 6th century exiles in Babylon just like he had at the beginning of time. God is still creating, says Isaiah. NOT a world this time BUT a new people for a new day in a rebuilt, renewed Jerusalem.

4. 1 note of interpretation. This is a Servant song. It is primarily about the Messiah, Jesus. Over time it came to be interpreted as being about the people of God as well. 1st Israel & then the followers of Jesus, the church.

42:5
1. Genesis 1-2 is recounted. Heavens, earth, people & the breath that fires them ALL created by God the Lord. The very life we live & walk is given to us by God. The Creator God is speaking again, creating again.

42:6a
1. this is a word of restoration. God will take hold of the hand of his people in Babylon. They will be called in righteousness once again. He is going to keep them & make them. Covenant is back on the menu.


42:6b-7
1. God has a purpose for these restored, renewed people. A missional purpose. They are blessed in order to be a blessing.

5. 1300 years earlier God said to Abraham, I will make you into a great nation and you will be a blessing.,,and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:1,3).

6. Isaiah the prophet sheds more light on God’s word to Abraham. You – the people of God – are going to bless all peoples in the following manner. A mission statement in 4 parts –
Þ be a light to the Gentiles
Þ open eyes that are blind
Þ free captives from prison
Þ release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness

7. 1st be a light to the Gentiles. Tell the nations about God the Creator. The One revealed in Jesus the Messiah. Ragna did this at the Advent Dessert when she shared her story.

8. 2nd open eyes that are blind. Blind to perceive spiritual truth. They need to be opened to the God who created them. The God who has revealed himself in Jesus.

9. 3rd & 4th free captives from prison & release those who sit in dungeon darkness. Literally & historically, liberation from Babylon’s dungeons & prisons which occurred in 586 BC. But there is much more here. Spiritual liberation is in mind – freedom from spiritual blindness, strongholds & darkness.

10. think Jesus, think Luke 4:18-19 which he read from Isaiah 61 & applied to himself:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

11. we as a people are poor, imprisoned, blind & oppressed. We need good news. We need a word of freedom. We need recovery of eye sight. We need release.

12. literally for SOME of us in our historical circumstances BUT spiritually for ALL of us in our relationships with God, each other & ourselves.

13. some of us have things in our lives that imprison us. They keep our lights from shining:
® fear anxiety worry
® over-eating spending hoarding
® addictions to drugs (prescription or illegal) pornography, alcohol
® bitterness anger pride
® past abuse is a big one in our day

14. we desperately need God to touch us. And then we can touch others. Blessed to be a blessing.

15. the way Abraham’s people (2000 BC) will be a blessing to all peoples is revealed in Isaiah’s word (700 BC), demonstrated in the life & ministry of Jesus (30 AD), and carried on by us, the Body of Christ (2007).

16. this passage end on a note of hope.

42:8
1. God is the sovereign Lord of the universe. He is a jealous God who will not share his glory with another. This is a big God. God of God. King of Kings. Lord of Lords. And he’s on our side.

42:9
1. he is going to create new things for the exiled people of God. Literally, historically they will be freed from Babylon & march home to Jerusalem to take up their life as the people of God. But there’s more…

2. what God did historically & literally for Israel he does spiritually, emotionally & relationally for us. He shines light into our darkness. Opens our blinded eyes. Frees us from prisons that capture our time, money & energy. Releases us from people or objects that are dungeon-like in their power to render us less than human, less than creative, less than what God intends for us to be.

3. prayer






Music I listened to while sermonizing – Over the Rhine, U2, David Crowder Band, Chris Tomlin, Bruce Springsteen

Books I read & studied while sermonizing – The Intimate Merton by Thomas Merton; Intuitive Leadership by Tim Keel; A Community Called Atonement by Scot McKnight; Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson; The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky