God's Gift

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Met Church podcast. Here at the Met, we are all about connecting people to God and one another. If you have any questions or want more information about what's happening here at the church, then head to our [email protected] we would love to stay connected with you throughout the week through social media. So be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Now enjoy the message. [00:00:24] Speaker B: Well, good morning everybody. It is about that time, right? How many of you are already ready for the big day? You're done, You've got everything finished. Aren't you happy? Aren't you great? How many of you still have a little bit to do? You got a little bit to do? You know, I asked this question at the 9:30 and I actually had like a dozen hands went up. How many of you haven't even started yet? Really? Oh, man, that's awesome. You know, that's this time of the year. You just say thank God for Amazon, don't you? I mean, not giving a plug to any particular company, but it is amazing. I mean now, I mean, you don't have to go shop. You just get online, buy what you want, you know, wouldn't it be great if they just deliver it to your family and don't worry about coming, y'? All. No, stay home, just. No, you don't need to make the trip. It's a long way, you know, Remember that, what was it, George Burns that said, true happiness is a large, loving, caring family. Another city, you know. But I hope that's not the case with all of you. I hope you have great family and you have great. Some great memories. You always have that one relative though, don't you, that you're like, oh, man, it'd be nice if they didn't come, but you know, they're probably here. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. I think God does that just to keep us humble and grateful and appreciative for all the good ones that you have and the happy ones you have. You have that one that the little lights aren't twinkling. You have that one. But I hope you make some great memories. You know, part of the memory making is the gift giving. It is an expression of our love and gratitude. And really the tradition, when you think about it, does go back to the wise men who brought those gifts in appreciation to the birth of the Christ child. And they brought those gifts just to express gratitude and love. And that's really the heart behind the giving of the gift. It's not the gift as much as it is the heart behind it. When Jesus described giving, he said it this way. He said, it's more blessed to give than to receive. Now, he didn't say it wasn't blessed to receive. Obviously, it's always fun to get something. But he said, if you love receiving, you'll even love giving even more. And wouldn't you agree that it's a joy when you be able to bless your kids or your grandbabies and watch them open a gift that you've gotten for them that they've been wanting and looking forward to it? And just. Just that memory that you have, that moment that you have, is really a wonderful thing. And I hope you'll make some great happy new memories. And I would encourage you to let the church be a part of those memories, as Amber mentioned earlier, be a part of one of our Christmas Eve services. It might be a great opportunity to get that family member or that friend to come to church. And they might not otherwise go to anyone's church. And so you can invite them on Christmas and have a wonderful celebration. I would encourage you. We're set up in each service for overflow. We never know how many people are gonna be here, but I encourage you to come early to whichever service that you select. I don't want you to have to set an overflow. And so get here early so you can get a great seat and be a part of one of these great Christmas Eve experiences. We have horns and strings, and it's going to be a beautiful experience. Candlelight communion. It's going to be a memorable night. And I would encourage you to make that a part of your Christmas celebration. It'll be a great time. And this is also Amber mentioned open house for our crc. And I'll just plug that one more time because so many of you give and support that. And I would also tell all of you that every dollar you give to the church, a portion of it goes to support the crc. It is our largest home mission. And this year we're just so thrilled to be able to report that we will have given away nearly $10 million in food this last year. Isn't that incredible? Such an amazing thing, such an enormous need. And we go beyond just helping them. Food. We have a myriad of services that are offered. We can help them from housing to counseling, and a lot of different things that the CRC offers. It's truly a resource center. Food is just the doorway. It's just the entry level to get them in so we can provide more services and greater ministry to them. So it's open house for the crc. If you hadn't been through the building, when we dismiss in a little while it's open, the staff will be over there to welcome you and answer any questions you might have. I encourage you just to swing by, walk through the building and see it firsthand. It's amazing all that God is doing there and the wonderful team that we have that God has sent us to lead, that we just. We don't turn people away. And if you run across someone that you may know, you may work with someone, maybe they've lost a job or there's some illness that's impacted them, send them to us. Let us help them with their needs. We can help them lift that grocery bill off of their shoulders. And there's no questions asked, nothing to be ashamed of. Like I said, we help thousands and thousands of families every week and every month with those basic necessities. So encourage people that you know to look our way to come again. We don't turn anyone away and we would love to help them. Well, again this morning, I wanna talk to you a little while about God's greatest gift in that gift giving season. Jesus is actually described when you read Romans, chapter 6, verse 23. He's described that way, the gift of God. God had a gift, and the gift that he gave to our world, the gift that you and I are still celebrating and rejoicing in, is the gift of Jesus Christ coming into the world and what that gift means and the impact of that gift. He gave us the perfect gift. He gave us the most practical gift. He gave us the gift that we couldn't quite frankly afford. He gave us a gift because of his grace and mercy, the gift of Jesus. And I wanna think about him. I wanna think about that just for a few moments before we go home today. I don't know how many of you have already asked the kids or grandkids, what do you want for Christmas? What do you want me to get you? I was in the truck the other day. I had a couple of the grandkids in there. Will, who's nine years old, Emma's 14. Sam was at basketball practice. So I had two of them in there. We're going down the road. So I looked at Will. He's in the zone. I. I said, will, what is Santa Claus gonna bring you? And he said, he's bringing me an atv. And I said, oh, an atv. Wow, that's man, swing for the fences. And I Said, man, that's amazing. Well, Emma again, 14, big sister, she speaks up and says, well, you know, Will, when you ask Santa for a big gift like that, he has to call mom and dad and basically make sure that, you know, we're set up to be able to handle something like that. And I thought, man, Emma for the win, man, we're right. Wow, way to go. And then he got all indignant. You know, he got indignant. He said, emma, this is between me and Santa, not me and Mom. I don't know what to help you on that one. I just told Shannon and Rick, well, good luck with all that. You know, Santa Claus may be a big disappointment here. Well, you know, but anyway, you know, that's part of it, right? You want to get them something they want, something they need. And God looked at the world. He looked at our condition. He looked at what the world needed, and he sent his son, Jesus. And when you look at the prophecies concerning the coming of Jesus, you realize in the Old Testament, there's over 300 prophecies concerning the coming of Jesus into the world. Over 300. In fact, if you go back to the book of Genesis, chapter 3, the very beginning of everything, in Genesis 3:15, shortly after sin enters the picture in, it isn't any time at all until God prophesied concerning the coming of the Messiah, concerning the coming of Jesus. And what's interesting about that is that Adam and Eve believe so strongly that Jesus one day, the Messiah, one day would come through the seed of the woman, which we know the seed remains in the man, but the seed of the woman is a prophecy concerning a virgin birth. And so they believed so strongly that through the woman that the Messiah would come, that they named their firstborn son Cain. And Cain, his name means acquisition. Or he is here. He's here now. He was the first murderer of the Bible. So swing and a miss. They got that wrong. But the point I don't want you to miss is the fact that they had the faith in what God had promised them to believe, that this firstborn boy could be the Messiah. You see that? So you can look at the gospel and you can look at the belief that the Messiah was coming, and I can trace it back to the garden, because even after sin enter the picture. And Jesus gave the prophecy concerning the Messiah coming through the woman, that they believed it so strongly that the first people that ever existed put their faith in the fact that one day the Messiah would come. In fact, I believe if you simplify how people in the Old Testament were saved. We looking forward to the coming of the Messiah, the coming of Jesus. They were saved the same way we were saved. I heard a pastor one time and he got up and he was talking about people in the Old Testament were saved, you know, by keeping the law and the covenants and these different things very differently than how people in the New Testament or how we are even saved today. And that gave me a little heartburn because that's just not biblical. That's not biblical. People in the Old Testament were saved the same way the people in the New Testament were saved the same way we're saved today. Let me simplify it for you. They were saved by faith. Looking forward to the fact that one day Jesus Christ would come. You and I, like the New Testament, we're saved by faith. At. Looking back at the fact that one day Jesus Christ did come. In fact, in Hebrews 11, it says they died not receiving the promise. Well, what was the promise? The promise of the coming of the Messiah. They believed one day he would come, but they died. They didn't see it. That's why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection of Jesus was so powerful, because had Jesus Christ not died and then rose again, all of those who died in faith would have died without hope. They would have perished without any chance of being redeemed or going to heaven one day. So there's always been only one way to go to heaven. There's always only been one way to know God, and that's through Jesus Christ, by faith, believing one day he did come. And. And the Old Testament believed one day he would come. So let me go back to that again. 300 prophecies. When you look at the little book of Micah in the Old Testament, it'll be back there where the pages of your Bibles are stuck together. Micah, he prophesied concerning the town in which Jesus would be born. He said, jesus will be born in Bethlehem. I mean, it was remarkable that they were writing about things through the prophecy. They were writing about things through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that they themselves did not understand. I don't believe for a skinny minute that Isaiah really understood a virgin birth. I'm sure they probably scratched his head and said, that's a biological impossibility. And yet when you read Isaiah chapter 7 in verse 14, God said, I'm gonna give a sign to people so that everyone will know this birth is different than all the other births. Jewish girls have been giving birth to babies, you know, for millennia. So just having a baby A young girl having a baby is not a sign. So what was the sign? Well, According to Isaiah 7:14, this young girl will be a virgin. Now there's your sign. She will then bring forth a child. And this child will be called Immanuel. So that was prophesied. Listen to this. 740 years before the event took place. Talk about getting the birth announcements out early. And so 740 years before Jesus came into the world, Isaiah prophesied and said, he's coming. And when you read the Old Testament, you see his coming. It's in types, it's in symbols, it's in signs. Throughout all of the Old Testament, even the building of the temple and this construction of the tabernacle was, were all signs to the coming of the Messiah. That's why somebody says, well, I read the Old Testament, but I didn't see Jesus in the Old Testament. I always kind of joke said, well, you need to reread it. It's really all about him. I mean, if I could outline the Bible for you, I'd outline it this way. I'd say the Old Testament, here's point one, Old Testament is Jesus Christ is coming. The Gospels, I'd outline it this way. Point two, Jesus Christ is here. And then I'd outline Acts 1 to Revelation 22:21. I'd say point three, Jesus Christ is coming back. And that's simply the whole story of the Bible. There's a story of Jesus. So this gift of God, this promised son, this Messiah, was prophesied from the beginning of time in the Garden of Eden throughout all of the Old testament. In fact, 300 prophecies, as I said, all were pointing to the coming of Jesus into our world. With that said, let me go back to Isaiah just for a moment. And in Isaiah chapter nine, there's this famous verse. A lot of these words are on some of your Christmas cards and some of the wishes that you extend during this holiday season. And I just wanted to focus on these words for a few moments before we leave because I think they're very powerful in describing the gift of God that God sent into our world. The coming of Jesus. Notice how he's described Isaiah 9, verse 6. He says, for unto us a child is born. And again, we'll celebrate that in our Christmas Eve services. The birth of Jesus. Unto us a child is born. That was the sign. This virgin Mary would conceive and bear this child. And so Isaiah 740 years again before this event, he said, this will happen and this child will be Unto us, in other words, this gift is going to be given to us. Unto us a child is born. Notice the second thought. Unto us, not only a child is born, but a son will be given. He is a child born. He is a son given. And then the third thing it says, and one day the government will be upon his shoulder. And then there's some beautiful descriptions in Isaiah 9, 6. He's wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of peace and so on. But just for the time's sake, I wanna look at those three thoughts. I wanna think about, first of all, the gift of God as him coming into the world as a child that is born. And when I think about him coming into the world as a child is born, it strikes me that that speaks of the humanity of Jesus. Jesus Christ came into the world literally as one of us. It is the way we came into the world. We had a natural birth. We were born into this world. And Jesus came through that legal means. He came through that track. And the Bible says Jesus Christ being born became the word John 1 says became flesh. God literally took on our human form. We use the term, or we use the word rather at this time, the incarnation of Christ and all that word means carnus is flesh. To be incarnate is to be in flesh. So when we say God incarnate, we're saying God is in flesh. So Jesus literally became one of us. Now, he was born of a virgin because he could not be tainted with the sin of mankind. Being born as one of us meant that if you're born in a natural birth through the lineage of your father and his father and so on and so on all the way back to the time of Adam, we would bear that element of sin genetically and predisposition. And with a proclivity towards sin. David put it this way. In sin, my mother conceived me. The Bible says that we are sinners by our very nature. We're even sinners by birth. Have you ever noticed as much as we love our kids, you never had to teach your kids how to lie, ever. You don't have to do, but what you have to teach them to do is tell the truth. Remember when you had that precious firstborn baby? Oh, aren't they special? I mean, we have some brand new babies around here and I just love those little newborns. It's a whole great experience having that first little baby in your house. And you remember when you went in there and you laid the baby down and they're finally going to sleep at night and you're trying to do that Michael Jackson moonwalk out of the room, you know, and you're trying to get out of there without waking that baby up. And all of a sudden, you get to the door, and you maybe get to the door, and all of a sudden it starts whimpering and starts crying. Ah. So you do the dance, you run over here, and you pick the baby up, and you're thinking, okay, wow, this is our first baby. So I gotta make sure I'm doing this. It's all right, right? So. So you're making. Well, it's full, it's dry. It's not. You know, there's no reason for this baby to be crying. Everything is fine. It's healthy, it's okay. And so after you've done that little dance about four or five times, you realize there's absolutely. This baby ain't dying. This baby's lying. This baby is training me. This baby is not being honest with me. There's nothing wrong with this baby right now. And I'm just saying that that's the nature. We're all wired that way. My mom used to love to tell a story when I was a toddler. She said, I went in your room one time, you're the only one in there, and you have powder all over you from head to toe. And she said the first thing I said to her when she saw me in that condition is, I didn't do it. Well, who else just mugged me and powdered me down good, Right? I'm just saying we're all sinners by nature and we're sinners by choice. Solomon said, it's as easy for a person to sin as it is the sparks of a fire to fly upward. I don't know about you, but I can sin effortlessly. I can sin without thinking. In fact, usually when I'm sinning, I'm not thinking. And it's just a natural. I'm just saying it's inbred. It's ingrained in our nature. So we have this propensity, as I said, this proclivity toward. Towards sin. But listen, when Jesus came into the world, he did not bear that nature. He did not have that ability because he came through this virgin birth. In fact, in Romans 5:12, it describes it this way. Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin. And then death was passed to all men because all have sinned. But Jesus was born different. He was born of a virgin. He was just as much man as though he had never been God, while being just as Much God as though he had never been man. Well, what then is more. What would be more of the significance of his birth and him being able to relate to us? What are some more significant things? Well, first of all, when you read Hebrews, Hebrews says we don't have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. But Jesus was in all points, tempted and tested as we are, yet he was without sin. Here's another thing I'd tell you, think about. Not only was born like us, without the sin nature, but he was born with the ability to relate to us. We have someone who gets us. Have you ever shared something? Maybe something devastating you've gone through or something? Maybe you're going through with someone and all of a sudden you just realize they're just glassed over and they're not connecting and they don't really care. And all of a sudden you just feel, why did I even open up to this person? Not only do they not understand me, they don't understand what I'm going through. And I. We've all had that experience, right? It just kind of hurts. Your heart disappoints you a little bit. And you just, you know. But I say that to say this, you've never bowed your head or you've never even looked off into the sunset and had a communion in your heart with God that he treated you that way. The Bible says concerning God that even the very hairs of our head are numbered. It didn't say he counts them. If he said the hairs of your head are counted, that means he would know how many there are. He said they're numbered. That means he knows which ones they are. I mean, you think, why is that in the Bible? Well, it's because he's trying to underscore the idea that he knows the most minute detail about your life down to the very hairs of your head. The Bible says he sees the sparrow when it falls. The Bible says he catches our tears in a bottle, as it were. In other words, there's not a human, an emotion that you can, and you share that with your heavenly Father that he doesn't understand. He gets you and he gets what you're going through. And so when he became one of us, he had the ability and does have that ability to relate to us. And that's why when you share your fears or you share your concerns or you share your anxiety or your hurts with him because he came into this world as a child born his humanity, there's a connection. The Bible Says he got tired, he sat down by the well. The Bible said he was hungry and he ate. The Bible says that he would get sleepy and he slept. I mean, everything that a human would express and experience, he expressed and experienced because he was one of us. He was the child that was born. So when Isaiah was prophesying about the coming of Jesus into the world, he said, he will become like us and, and he will be one of us. And he had to fill that type and he had to be one of us in order to take upon himself our sin. There's a type of Jesus that's given in the Book of Ruth. In the Book of Ruth, you know that beautiful love story how that Ruth's husband died and Boaz befriended her and fell in love with her and became her, the Bible says her kinsman Redeemer, he took care of her. And there was a principle in the Old Testament that if someone died close to you and you were their kinsman, you were the kinsman closest to them, you had an opportunity and you had an obligation to help them financially to come alongside of them to make sure they were cared for. And the term was kinsman Redeemer. And Jesus in that likeness of Boaz, he became our kinsman Redeemer. He came alongside of us when we could not save ourselves. And he came alongside of us when we could not help ourselves. And he became one of us and bore in his body the sins and he satisfied the judgment of God on sin at the cross. So he was a child born. Secondly, he was a son given. That means that Jesus Christ became God's sacrifice. I mentioned a moment ago on the cross he was a son given. This speaks to his deity in John 1. Again, the Bible says the Word was God and the Word was with God. In verse 14 it says this Word became flesh and this Word dwelt among us. And we've seen his glory as the glory as only the Son from the Father full of grace and truth. Jesus, just as much man as though he were never God, but just as much God as though we were never man. So this child born, was born to be the son that would be given. One of the verses that if you've been in church very long, you probably know how to recite is John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave. Listen, he gave. Here's his gift. He gave his only begotten Son, a son given the that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. So Jesus, the child born in the Manger would be the Son that would be given at the cross, the Son that would bear our sins on the cross. He would be our kinsman, redeemer. In fact, when you look at Jesus, you've seen God. Because in John 14, 9, he said, if you've seen me, you've seen my father. In John 10:30, he said, Look, I and the Father, we're one. So Jesus came into this world as the expression of God. If you wanna know what God looks like, look at Jesus. If you don't wanna know what God would do, look at Jesus. Look at how he handled problems and look at how he handled people, and look at how he handled pressure. He is the God man. And God sent him into the world as a son, as a child born, but he sent him into the world as a son given. When Paul wrapped his mind around that, he described him in Romans Chapter one. He said, jesus Christ, the Son of God, came and he was declared to be the Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. Paul said, one of the ways that we knew Jesus was sent from God, and one of the ways we knew Jesus was the Son of God, is the fact that the Spirit of God affirmed him. Remember at the baptism of Jesus, where John the Baptist is baptizing Jesus, and all of a sudden there's a voice from heaven, and it's the voice of God that says, this is my beloved Son, in whom I'm well pleased. And the Bible says, that moment, the Spirit of God descended on him in the presence of a dove. And so in that moment, at the baptism of Jesus, you have the Trinity, you have God the Father, and you have God the Son, and you have God, the Holy Spirit, all present in that moment, at that time. And the Spirit of holiness, Paul said in Romans 1 verified who Jesus is. Think about it. When Pilate went to put Jesus to death, one of the things he did was to try to find something that Jesus did that was wrong that would justify putting him to death. And he sent out the finest man, the finest people in the world to find, to dig up anything that Jesus had ever done wrong. And he comes back and you read the record. Pilate says, I can't find any fault in him. Can you imagine? Can you imagine if someone got on our trail and they began to investigate all of our life and they came back and said, I can't believe. I can't find a word that he ever said that was wrong. I can't find a thing that he ever did that was Wrong. I can't find a thought that he ever had that was wrong. Are you kidding me? None of us could stand up to that scrutiny. And yet after Pilate sent out the finest investigators of the then known world, they came back and said, we can't find anything on this guy. And Pilate looked at him and said, I, Jesus, I find no fault in you. He was perfect in every respect. He was the God man. And According in Romans 1, again it said, according to the Spirit of holiness, he was holy. And then it said, by the resurrection from the dead, the fact Jesus walked out of that grave proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that he was and is the Son of God. And when Paul describes him there, I love how he describes him. He says he is Jesus Christ the Lord. And those names are significant. When I think about the child born and I think about the son given, he's given as Jesus Christ the Lord. What do those names mean? Well, Matthew 1:21, the angel said to Mary, you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sin. Jesus represents his saving nature. You receive Jesus as savior, the name Jesus. The Bible says in Acts, there's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved than the name Jesus. So the name Jesus means saving one. But again, in Romans 1, he said, not only was he affirmed as the Messiah according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, but he's Jesus Christ the Lord, he's the saving one. But what about Christ? What does that name mean? Christos? It means he's the anointed one. It speaks of his priestly ministry. It's a throwback to the Old Testament days. Remember the work of the priest in the temple? The priest would take the sacrifices of the people, apply the blood to the altar, and then symbolically, it would roll the sins of the people forward for one more year until that happened again. And every year, the sins of the people were rolled forward, forward, forward, forward. Until one day, all. All of the sins of the world were rolled upon Jesus at the cross. And he became the sacrifice that would end all sacrifices. But in that action of the priest, in that ministry of the priest, what the priest was doing in applying the sacrifice, he was making atonement for the sins of the people. Now, what does the word atonement mean? It's Christianese. To some of us, the word, if you break it apart, it looks like this at one meant kind of looks like the at one ment. And that's a pretty good definition of the Word. It means he takes two warring factions. He takes two people who were opposed to each other, and he brings them together. He makes atonement. So what was the work of Jesus Christ? The Lord Jesus is the saving one. Christ is the atoning one. That means, ladies and gentlemen, the beauty of that is because Jesus was a son given at the cross. That means you and I will never stand in judgment for our sin. When all the sins of the world were rolled upon Jesus on the cross and the fires of God's judgment fell on Jesus on the cross, Jesus, literally being infinite, paid in a finite period of time what you and I, who are finite, would have had to pay in an infinite period of time. He suffered on the cross, and he satisfied the justice of God upon sin, and he made it possible. He made atonement for every person that's ever been alive on this planet if they'll just trust him as Savior. He's the saving one. He is the atoning one. It's interesting. There's a psalm where David wrote and said, mercy and truth have met together. They embraced and they've kissed one another. And that sounds strange because those are two diabolically different concepts, mercy and truth. When you think about it, in the legal system, truth demands justice. The soul that sins must die. That's truth. Mercy says, well, I know they committed the crime, but they just. They didn't have a choice or they didn't have a chance, or they didn't have the right upbringing or they didn't have the right culture. I mean, can we just administer a little grace? And truth says, no. The soul that sins must die. And David, Saul, trying to reconcile those concepts, and he in prophecy, David saw a time where those concepts would be reconciled. And they were reconciled at the cross when Jesus paid the price of sin, truth said, the soul that sinned will die. And Jesus, through his death on the cross, satisfied the justice of God on sin. But through his resurrection, he has the power to offer mercy now to all who will receive him. You know why? Because the judgment of God will never fall again where the judgment of God has already fallen. Think about this. The fire will never come where the fire has already been. When you see these big prairie fires or you see these big forest fires, sometimes when they're burning out of control, what they'll do is they'll get ahead of it and they'll create a fire break. If it's a prairie fire and we have them here in Texas a lot, they'll get ahead of that and they'll burn off large sections of property as they watch that fire moving. Because at that fire break, that fire can't come where the fire's already been. And they can get the fire under control. And they can often put that fire out by creating a fire break. What happened at the cross. What happened at the cross is the fire of God's judgment fell on Jesus at the cross. The fire of his judgment fell. And when I go to the cross and. And I embrace Jesus as my Savior, he atones for my sin. And the fire of God's judgment will never fall again. Where the fire has already fallen, it'll never come again. I'll never stand in judgment for my sin. Now will a Christian sin. Yes, absolutely. Christian sin. It doesn't affect our eternal status. It affects our fellowship. You're connected to God two ways. You're connected to him in a relationship with him. He's your Savior. He's made atonement. He's the Son given and the child born. And he's connected you to the Creator. So you know him as Savior. Relationally. He's your father, you're his child. But what can be affected is not your relationship, but your fellowship. If you're in a relationship with your spouse, you understand this. You can have a relationship with someone you're out of fellowship with. You can love someone you don't like. I'll try to color that a little more. You can be in a relationship with someone, but for a period of time, you're not talking to that someone. That's the relationship we have with our Father. We can be connected to him, but be out of fellowship with him. That's what gets broken when we sin. That's why in 1 John 1:9, John said, if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You know what happens when you get reconnected to God? And as a child of God, he restores fellowship. Relationship was always there. You're his child, but the fellowship was broken. And when you receive Jesus, look, heaven's not gonna be some place where all the things we've ever done that were wrong are gonna be displayed on big screens. And everybody in heaven is gonna see everything you've ever done that is wrong. That's not what heaven is about. In fact, the matter of sin in the life of God's children is dealt with before we get to heaven. It's on this side of the line. You know what heaven is? Read 1st Corinthians 3. Heaven is a time of rewards or lost rewards. But I've heard evangelists sometimes in my dad's old church, they'd get up and say, man, it was scare me. I wasn't very old, so I hadn't had time to do a lot of sinning. But what sinning I'd done, I didn't want everybody to know about it. And he would say, one day in heaven, in the clouds, it's gonna be this big screen, and every rotten thing you've ever done is gonna be seen by all of mankind, man. I'm sitting there going, holy, holy cow. Every thought you've ever had, every word you've ever going, good night. Are you kidding me? Then I got to thinking, is heaven going to be like a big cinema now showing on three screens the sins of Andy Wambs? Gods, you know, Is that what it's. No. Is that. No, that's not what it's. No, that's not it at all. All of that was taken care of at the Cross. The hymn writer said Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe Sin had left the crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. Remember what happened in the garden. Three significant things that affected all of us. First of all, there was guilt. Guilt. Adam and Eve used to walk with Jesus in the cool of the day. And one day when God came to walk with them, they weren't there. They were hiding. Why were they hiding? They were hiding because of their sin. Sin always brings guilt. Guilt. And I love it when God calls out, adam, where are you? Look, Adam, are you kidding me? God's sovereign. Do you think he didn't know where Adam was? I read that, and I think sometimes when our oldest girl, when Shannon was just little, Cindy and I were on a trip. And Cindy's in the bathroom getting ready for bed, and I'm sitting on the watching television, and Shannon's just playing a little kid playing over in the corner. And all of a sudden Shannon says to me, she goes, dad, where am I? You can't find me. And so I'm looking around the room and I see her behind a little chair, and she's got both hands covering her face. And so I realized, oh, okay, we got a game, right? Right, parents, we got a game going now. I go, oh, where's Shannon? I don't know where Shannon is. So I'm getting up and I call Cindy. I go, cindy, I don't know where Shannon is. Of course, that was a really dumb thing to say. She runs out of the bathroom. Are you kidding? You know like, you have one job while I was in there. And I'm like, no, no, no. You know, doing that thing. And so she starts playing along. Where's Shannon? So we're looking under the pillows, and we're all looking around. Where is Shannon? And finally, she uncovers her face. Here I am. Oh, there you are, Right? I think about that when I think about Adam and Eve hiding over here from God. You can't see me. I can't see you, so you can't see me. Like, God's going, oh, come on. You're making me look bad. Come out. Quit hiding. No. Why is that exchange in the Bible? Why do we even know that happened? Well, we know it happened. God wasn't saying him hiding from me and me finding where he was hiding, that was information that I needed. It's not that God needed to know where Adam was. He knew. Adam needed to know where Adam was. Adam needed to understand. Something's changed in our relationship. I never used to hide from you. I never used to be ashamed to be in your presence. I never used to be afraid. And now, for the first time, I'm hiding in the first time, I feel ashamed. I'm feeling these negative emotions I've never experienced before. Why sin separated him. So you have guilt, and then you have condemnation. You remember the story? God cursed the ground, and he said, now you're gonna have to earn your living by the sweat of the brow. It's gonna be harder for you. Everything that God had created to be eternal started dying off little by little by little by little. Our earth started aging. Everything started going in decline. Earth was condemned, man was condemned. And then the third thing that happened was not only guilt and condemnation, but, boy, here's another negative one. Guilt, condemnation, separation. He drove him out of the garden, and there was a separation between man and between God. And when you fast forward to the coming of Jesus, the child born, the son given, read what Paul said in Romans 8. He opens it this way. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Isn't that great? All the things that were condemned in the garden because Jesus came into the world. Condemnation. He's removed it. When you receive him, there's no condemnation. And not only that, he goes on to say, and in Romans 8, who will lay anything against the charge? Or who will lay a charge against my elect? Who will accuse my children of anything? No one can. Meaning there's no guilt. Meaning that once God has forgiven me, he forgets the sin that I've committed. He puts it as far as the east is from the West. So there's no point in me being guilty over something God has forgiven. That's why we tell you all the time, if God has forgiven you, forgive yourself. Forgive yourself, man. God, why are you holding that against you? God's forgiven you, so there's no condemnation, there's no guilt. Here's the third one. There's no separation. Read the last part of Romans 8. Who shall separate us from the love of God? Shall angels or principalities or powers or things present or things to come, or height or depth? He says, no, nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Everything we lost in the garden because of the child that was born and the son that was given has been gloriously reclaimed. When you receive Jesus as savior. And the last one, I'll just give it to you and we'll go home. The Bible says one day this hadn't happened yet. One day the government will be on his shoulders that speaks of the royalty of Jesus. One of these days, folks, the Bible says every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God. There will be a rapture of the church that will happen one day where Jesus will catch us up into the clouds to meet him. And we'll be reunited with our loved ones who have gone before. And then there'll be a return of Jesus to the earth at the end of the great tribulation period of seven years. And this time, his feet will touch the Mount of Olives. He'll walk through the eastern gate in the ancient city, establish his throne on the throne of David, and he'll rule for 1,000 years. And the government will be on his shoulders. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And one day, folks, every person on this planet will recognize him that way. So I can tell you as I close this morning, we're on the winning team. Listen, this is as bad as it'll ever get for any of you. If you know Jesus, you're going through the only hell you'll ever go through. You're going through it right now. We're going to a better place. God has a higher purpose. I read the last book of the Bible. Guess what? We win. We're gonna be okay. That's why the Bible says, lift up your head, your redemption draws nigh. When you feel sad and you feel down, remember, God has conquered everything. God has brought victory to every area. And he has the ability to bring victory to every area of your life. He can forgive the sin, he can lift the burden, he can solve the problem. This child born was the son given. And one day he will rule on this earth with a government on his shoulders. What a wonderful time that'll be. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for your word that is certain and sure. Thank you Father that we can really pillow our head and not have to do so in fear wondering what the future looks like. Because we belong to you. And I pray for my friends in this room or some maybe watching online who has never trusted you that in this Christmas season this would be the time when they finally open their heart and receive you into their life to be their Savior and their Lord. You are the saving one. You are our Savior. You are the atoning one. And you are the leading one. You are our Lord. And so Father, I pray in this moment for my friends who may never have made that step to receive you, that this would be the time I pray right where they are. They'd pray a simple prayer like this and say, Lord Jesus, with everything I know about me, I now trust all that I know about you. Come into my heart, forgive my sin, be a reality in my life. I trust you now. In Jesus name. Amen. [00:42:51] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting met gifts church.com so that we can follow up with you this week. We look forward to seeing you next week.