Man, it is exciting to be with you guys here this morning today as we begin to get into
this stuff.
As Chris said, I'm super excited about where we're landing today.
I'm super excited about this as we kind of come to the conclusion of this series.
And we're going to dive into it.
Before I get into it, I want to say hi to University of Idaho, Go Vandals, Central Washington
University, Go Wildcats, and of course, Go Cougs.
We're excited about where we're headed and what we're doing in this as we kind of get
to this place where we kind of look at these stories.
And throughout the last five weeks, what we've done is we have said there's things that
we see in the Bible that throughout history have been told to reveal the character of
God, to reveal who God is.
And as we begin to get into this, what happens is oftentimes we are forgetful people.
We are people that get caught up in moments in our lives.
We get caught up in circumstances in our lives.
And we kind of forget what is going on around us.
We kind of forget our foundation and where we're kind of connected in all of this.
And throughout history, what has been done is that people have begun to over and over
tell these stories and begin to cement in our hearts and our lives the reality of who
God is because here's the reality.
We are people who live and for some of you, you are believers in Jesus.
You're believers in God.
And yet at the same time, we are not immune to the reality of doubt.
We are not immune to these moments in our lives where we ask the question, is it true?
Could it be?
Is this really about what I think it's about?
And we begin to kind of look in and peer into this.
And we begin to have these moments that we kind of get to this conclusion.
We say, if this is true, then the meaning of this is incredibly significant in my life.
But I have to know, is it true?
Because there's these moments where we doubt because this story is so significant.
This reality is so significant that when we begin to see what are the implications of
this, sometimes it's overwhelming to us.
I don't know if you've been in those places, I don't know if you've kind of come to this
place where you've asked that question, is this really true?
Is this really something that I can stake my life on?
Is this something that I can trust in?
Because if so, this requires something of my life.
You see, in college, I went through a time, I went through kind of a season where I began
to listen to some of the voices around me in academia.
And as a psychology major, I began to question some of the things that I was experiencing
in worship and questioning whether or not this was true or whether this is just something
I needed to believe in to fulfill some sort of a need that I had in my heart.
And I began to go into this period of doubt.
And I began to kind of have this kind of reality that I was like, God, is this really true?
Because this is exceptional.
Because when I began to think through this and process through this, it seems like this
is outside of what is normative, that this is outside of what scientific theory would
explain.
And as I began to get into this, as I began to understand, there was something that began
to radically transform my life.
And there was a story that began to orient my life and completely change.
And in this period of doubt, in this period of trying to figure out, God, are you really
there?
Is this something that I can rely on?
Is this something that is just kind of a nice story?
Is this something that just gives hope to hopeless people?
Or is this something that can set the trajectory of my life and then I can rely on?
In the midst of that, I began to doubt who God is and I began to understand that as this,
what I was really doubting is I was doubting God's real love for me and true acceptance
of me.
I began to say, God, I don't really know if you really love me, if you really accept
me.
And as I began to process that and say, why is that so significant?
Why is it that I am casting a suspicious eye towards God?
And I began to peer into Scripture.
And I don't know if you're like me, I don't know if you're like that, but I began to realize
that this reality of who I was and the questions that I was asking, even in the questions that
I was asking, began to reveal who God was.
Because I was living a life that was really, by all outside circumstances, a pretty good
life.
As a college student, highly actualized, I was successful objectively.
I came from a family that loved me.
All these things would point to the fact that in all these great things that were going
on in my life, that whole that was still there, that thing that was still there that was missing,
was not something that I was missing in the world around me that was something that was
built in intrinsically into my soul.
And I began to ask the question, why do I need the love and acceptance of something
beyond me, of God?
And this began to put me back into this exploration of who God was.
And I began to ask the question, God, is this really true?
Do you love me?
Do you accept me?
And I need to understand this, God.
I don't want to just play all these games, but I need to understand, is this true?
And I began to realize something.
And I began to realize that there was a gap between what I understood that the Bible
was saying and what that really meant.
And one of the moments that really clarified this for me was a moment that I felt like I
fell in love.
And so I don't know if you've ever been in that place before where you were just like
head over heels, but all throughout my life, up to that point, I kind of had these crushes
on girls and I'd had these moments where I thought, I kind of really like you.
But there was this moment that all of a sudden, I fell in love, right?
And there's this overwhelming thing.
And in that moment, here is what happened, I understood country music.
That was that moment.
I understood love songs.
I understood this whole thing about what these people were saying.
At one point, I understood the lyrics, right?
I understood what they were saying, but at some point, all of a sudden, because of what
was happening inside of me, it meant something.
I was like, I get it now.
I finally understand country music, right?
Or any other love songs, but typically country music, right?
So in this, there was this moment where I was like, this is what this is saying.
And all of a sudden, this is connected to me at a soul level.
What I began to understand was that most of my life, I'd heard the words, God loves you
and accepts you, but at some point, I really didn't understand what that meant for me.
And when I understood what that meant, it began to radically change my life.
I mean, holistically change my life.
Like the way I was is not the way I am.
And there's a part of the Bible that began to express this and explain this to me more
than anything else.
And as we conclude this series, I want to show you this moment of incredible love.
You see, I'd heard all of these stories about how Jesus died on the cross for me and how
Jesus suffered for me.
And I'd seen the depictions of a bloody naked Jesus, right?
And this is something that I could get in my mind, but still not truly connect to.
And it was something that still was distant.
But then I began to explore Scripture and then something began to break open into my eyes
and I began to realize a moment above maybe all other moments where the love of God was
expressed in a significant way.
And I want to let the Bible speak to us because maybe you're like me.
Maybe you are here today and there's a point that you say, I don't know if I can really
trust the love of God and the acceptance of who God is in my life.
I don't really know if I could just abandon everything else and allow the love of God
to fulfill me without any other additives in my life.
Because here's the fight that we are, as people who believe and doubt, oftentimes we're like,
I think that God, you are significant enough, but I also want to hedge my bets.
And so I want to be able to bring into this the way that other people believe about me,
boyfriend or girlfriend or my success in this, all these things to make sure that just in
case your love isn't enough, that have all of the rest of this stuff to be able to say,
oh yeah, your love, your worthwhile, your somebody who has intrinsic value.
But I want you to know that what happens when we begin to find our love and worth in something
other than God, what happens is we begin to ride this porpoise.
We begin to ride this kind of wave up and down because we believe sometimes that we're
really close to God and other times we're really distant from God.
And if that is you, if sometimes you feel near to God and sometimes you feel distant
to God, there might be something that you're missing.
And that's something that you're missing might be the overwhelming clarity of the love of
God and the acceptance of God in your life.
Because once you get that, once that is connected to you at a soul level, the ups and downs
of Christian life, the thing like, I really feel like God accepts me when I'm doing good,
and then I kind of run away in shame when I'm doing bad, that it gets eliminated because
you begin to overwhelmingly understand this reality.
This reality is found in the story of the Bible.
And that story of the Bible for us is this reality that is painted across the entire
swath.
And the first thing we begin to see in Act 1 is that God creates humanity.
And when he creates humanity at the very beginning, in Act 1, he is walking with him, he is dialoguing
with him, he is dwelling with him in the garden.
See, they had no sin, God is holy, there was this moment of beauty for them.
They have no shame, right?
It's as they walk naked in the garden and they have no shame.
And it's a picture for us of being absolutely, incredibly accepting of who God is and knowing
that he is incredibly accepting of who we are.
There's nothing between God and people.
But what happens in Act 2 is that people decide that they don't trust God.
The seed of distrust is sown into humanity by Satan.
And in this moment, they begin to think, I don't know if God really loves me or accepts
me.
What happens there is they begin to go their own way, and that's called sin.
And when we decide to say, I'm going to find my love and acceptance in something other
than God, I'm going to go in that way and not in God's ways, that is the beginning of sin.
And this is something that in all of us is there.
What happens in that moment is there is a break in the relationship.
There's a distance.
In Act 2, God becomes a distant God.
Act 1, God dwells with him.
Act 2, God is distant from them.
And this is this reality that we see that when we begin to understand who God is in
these distant realities, if you talk about the people, God's people, they would say,
God dwells not with us, God dwells separated from us in this temple.
So everyone would say, that's where God dwells, and they would relate to God in a fearful
way and fearful obedience.
God is powerful.
He is separated from us.
We think we should do this.
But what happens is all throughout humanity, that idea of God as a distant God that we
obey out of fear never brings us into a sense of security with our heavenly Father.
And we go through these cycles up and down.
When we do it well, we feel connected because right, we're doing exactly because it's clear.
We're accepted when we do things right and we're not accepted when we do things wrong.
And so we go back and forth in this.
But the beauty is there's an Act 3.
And the Act 3 is what we're going to be talking about today, because the Act 3 is this reality
that God said, you know what, there was a time when we dwelled together and you sinned
and there was a distance from us, but I'm not going to allow that to stay.
And so in the right place, in the right time, when God orchestrated the events of the world
in order to allow a moment to happen, God sent His very own Son into this world.
He sent Jesus.
And in Christmastime, we talk about this in the story that they would tell over and over,
is this reality of God deciding to send His Son into this world.
And in Act 3, there's this reality that God is with us, and it looks like this.
It looks like this angel coming to this teenage girl and saying, hey, you're going to have
a baby.
And she's saying, you know what, I don't think so because I've never had sex with anybody.
And that's kind of how it works, right?
And said, no, you don't understand.
You're going to have a baby.
And here's how it's going to work.
The Holy Spirit's going to overshadow you.
And here's this reality is that you are going to become impregnated with a child in this.
And so she's overwhelmed that she is this chosen person that is going to carry the child
of God.
And at the same time, she is betrothed or she's kind of engaged to a guy named Joseph.
Now God kind of knows that this is not going to go well when Joseph finds out you're pregnant
and it's God's child.
I don't know what's going on here.
And so just in clarity, there's an angel that sent to Joseph and says, actually, she's
telling the truth, right?
This wasn't just some bizarre thing that she's saying to you.
This is actually happening.
And I need you to get on board with this.
I know that you were going to divorce her quietly, but I need you to stay with her because
this is a part of a better plan.
This is act three.
And you get to be chosen to be Jesus's earthly father.
And he says all of this.
And here's how this concludes with this moment in Scripture where we see in Matthew one,
verse 22, all of this is put together.
And it basically says this in verse 22, says, all of this took place to fulfill what the
Lord had said to the prophet, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they
will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.
Now in Christmas time, we hear this story and we kind of, I think gloss over it with
all of the things that occupy the space in Christmas time.
But this story is of God who takes and sends his son to earth and impregnates a young teenage
girl in order to bear the savior of the world.
And all of this, as it was foretold, this is a whole, the whole plan of God is saying,
you know what, this is not just something that happened and I got on board with it.
This was the plan that at the right moment and the right time that I would interject
this into humanity, into history.
And what happens is we begin to have a new reality.
Act three is God with us.
Act one, God dwells with us.
Act two, God is distant from us.
Act three is God with us.
And this is incredible and this is amazing.
And I think if you were to say, Keith, how is this really connecting me to the love and
acceptance of Jesus Christ?
I need you to understand some stuff, that the idea of God with us, when we begin to see
what God did in this, you need to get a context and you need to get a picture for how loving
this was.
Maybe it would be helpful for us to get kind of a picture of this together and for us to
begin to think if we were God, if we were in this place and we looked down on our creation,
but let's put ourself in the view of humanity right there.
It would be as if we looked down and we saw this worm on the ground and we began to say,
my precious worm, there's something that's messed up in the worm's life.
This worm and I were meant to have an abiding relationship with each other and yet that
worm has created a fractured relationship and now we're distant.
Humanity and worm life.
So what I'm going to do is I am going to become the worm.
I am going to take and live a worm's life.
I'm going to go into the muck and the mire and the dirt.
And I'm going to be with them in order to redeem the worm.
You see, this is crazy to us because oftentimes we think of God as just like one step better
than us or like the best views of humanity, but not that God is this amazingly other holy
God and that to come down and to be a human with us is incredibly sacrificial.
It reveals how deeply He loves us because if we were to say, I'm going to give up the intellect
of humanity, I'm going to give up the actualization and the pleasure of being a human to be able
to live in a worm's world to redeem the worm.
This is this overwhelming picture and it gets lost.
We put all this emphasis that Jesus would come and He would die for us, but the great
miracle is that He would come down and be among us.
You see, C.S.
Lewis, he says it this way, says the central miracle asserted by Christians is the incarnation.
This is the taking on a flesh.
When God takes on flesh, they say that God became man.
Every other miracle prepares for this or exhibits this or results from this.
Just as every natural event is the manifestation at a particular place and moment of nature's
total character, so every particular Christian miracle manifests at a particular place and
moment, the character and the significance of the incarnation of God with us.
Let's go back.
What is the incarnation?
The incarnation is this.
It is the Son, God the Son, as the pre-existent part of the Trinity, the Father, Son and
the Holy Spirit, coming to earth as both fully human and fully God.
I need you to get this amazing thing that is in this place, that we begin to see that
Jesus, who is a part of the Trinity, Jesus wasn't created when He came to earth.
There was the Father, Son and Holy Spirit enjoying community together throughout eternity.
And then we begin to see this moment where Jesus, as the pre-existent Son of God, comes
down into humanity to be both fully human and fully God, and I need you to get this
and understand this because it is the linchpin for everything about Christianity.
All other religions have issue with this.
If you begin to look at Muslims, they begin to deny that somehow the divine can be human.
And so they would deny that this would ever happen.
And they said, there's no way that Jesus can be both God and human.
There's no way.
We see the Jehovah's Witness who alter the scriptures to be able to say, there's no
way that this could happen.
We say the same thing with Mormons who say that this God and humanity cannot coexist.
So this is essential.
It is the essential part of this in terms of how our faith works.
But that is what it says.
What it means to you is something greater than that, that the incarnation of Jesus Christ
becoming a man is the greatest act of love.
It's the primary act of love that all acts of love emanate from.
And so when we begin to think through what is Christmas, Christmas is this great act
of love, this great act of acceptance.
And when we begin to look at this and say, you came out of heaven to be with us, I hope
that you get overwhelmed by this because here's the thing, the incarnation allows you to see
that without a doubt that you are loved and that you are understood.
You see, before Christ has happened, there was the communication between God and people.
It was kind of this strained, distant thing.
But then Christ comes into this world and radically changes it.
It was like a moment when I was dating this girl who would later become my wife, Paige.
And we dated.
When we began to date, we were only in the same place for about two months out of the
year that we dated.
And she went off to Georgia to work with college students in the state of Georgia.
And this was one of those things back, this is before cell phones were really prevalent
in terms of the ability to speak long times on them.
And so we would try to figure out, how do we connect with each other?
What does it look like?
How can we bridge the gap from East Texas to Georgia?
And we would try to get creative with this and we would try to figure out, how is it
that we see each other?
Because again, film madly in love, understood country music.
And all of that led us to think through, what is it that could be?
How can we do this?
One time she begins to tell me about this thing that she's doing.
She's flying from Atlanta to Denver.
And she's going to kind of see and scout a trip that she's taking some students to
go for spring break.
And so this is November, somewhere around November, and we hadn't seen each other in
months.
And so I began to ask, tell me a little bit about what you're doing.
And in passing, she said, well, I'm going to fly to Houston, I'm going to fly to Denver.
And then it's kind of the reverse flying from Denver to Houston and back.
And she began to tell me the timeframe.
And I began to formulate a plan in my head that this is pre-911.
And somehow I was going to get into that airport.
And so in her layover, she was so close, she was about an hour and a half away from where
I went to college.
And I was going to make sure that when she arrived at that airport for that layover,
no matter how long, that was going to be worth a three-hour drive for me to be able to just
see her for a few moments.
Now she didn't know this.
She had no clue.
And I didn't want to in any way kind of communicate that I wanted to do this.
And so I didn't ask her what flight, I didn't ask her what specific time.
And then I arrived from the airport and realized that those are two crucial questions to be
able to understand this.
And so what I do is I begin to look at the board and find out when are any flights.
And she's going back at this point from Denver to Houston.
And I begin to say, OK, what does that look like?
And so I run from each gate and thinking, they all come out, and I'm like, OK, that
wouldn't hurt.
So I need to go this other place.
And then I began to pick up the courtesy phone and began to ask airlines about if they could
give me names on the flight.
They said that that is illegal.
And I said, just please.
And so how about if I give you initials and you just give me a, you know, tried everything,
but they wouldn't budge on it.
And so finally, I'm going back from flight to flight.
And then there's this flight, I think, oh, OK, I think this is going to be it.
But the problem is, by the time I determined that this might be the thing, the flight had
already landed.
And I was like, there's my chance.
And so I'm running through this terminal.
And I'm getting to this place, and it was packed, because there was all this weather
that had slowed down everything.
And I began to realize that there is a delay.
And she also realized that there was a delay, and it was a two and a half hour delay.
So she began to get the idea that I had.
And she began to say, OK, two and a half hours.
What that means is that if I call him and he leaves right now, it's an hour and a half
from college to the airport.
OK?
And if he can come down, maybe we could see each other.
And so she goes to the nearest pay phone.
She puts in her quarters, and she begins to call my apartment.
She calls my apartment, but no one is there.
And so she then hangs up the phone, and she's just thinking, ah, I missed it.
This would have been so cool.
But I see her in this room, and I walk up behind her, and I have the roses in my hand.
And she puts the phone down in disgust and turns around, and there I am.
And this girl freaks out.
She jumps on me.
She gets one of those hugs that takes a leap on me, and I'm struggling and poking her with
all of the thorns, because I had not had time to pull the thorns off the roses.
She's like, I love you, and you're making me bleed, right?
But there's this moment, and everyone in this whole terminal, they're just like, what is
happening?
What is this girl screaming about?
And this is beautiful moments, right?
And so she is just, we go and we have dinner, we come back, and she is just beaming.
She gets on, and she tells the story about what it looked like for her to walk on this
plane.
Everybody is frustrated that they have a two and a half hour delay, and she is just ear
to ear beaming carrying these roses, because something happened there that was unexpected.
There's a moment that we thought maybe we'll get to talk on the phone.
This is our life.
It's talking on the phone.
But then there was a moment where unexpectedly she saw face to face, the most meaningful
person in her life at that point.
She saw me face to face, and it was overwhelming in this moment.
So when we begin to think, what does it mean for us to understand the incarnation?
It's like we've been trying to connect with God.
We've been trying to say, God, are you there?
Do you love me?
Do you accept me?
All of a sudden, we come face to face with God who is with us, and this is key for us
to understand.
What does it mean for a God to be with us?
And what does God with us really mean?
I want to tell you a couple of things.
There's two ways that we really misunderstand God with us.
The first thing is we underestimate God's love, that God is with us, that we begin to
see this idea that we underestimate, underestimate, we'll go with God's holiness first.
We underestimate, there we go, God's love, we'll stay there.
So this reality of God's love, that God really loves you, that when we begin to think about
this, God with us, do you really believe that God really loves you?
Do you believe that this is something that when you begin to understand who he is, that
this would just overwhelm you with his love, that God loves you?
Looking at this picture of this in Hebrews, see, this is this overwhelming reality that
happens in our lives, and the writer of Hebrews is saying, do you get it?
To people who are coming after Jesus.
By the time Hebrews was written, Jesus was gone off the scene, but the reality of him
coming and being with us was so significant that the writer of Hebrews says, you need
to get this.
And they write in Hebrews chapter two, it says this, what is mankind that you are mindful
of them?
He's quoting Psalm eight, a son of man that you would care for him.
You made them a little lower than the angels.
You crowned them with glory and honor and put everything under their feet.
What they're trying to say, what he's trying to communicate is do you understand that when
Jesus came, how incredibly loving that was.
I'm trying to say this is the unique thing about humanity.
And when we miss it, we miss it on one of two sides, that we don't really believe that
God loves little us, that we don't believe that he is mindful of us.
And for some of you think God is distant and God is out there and he has all these rules
and has all these expectations of you, but you don't believe that in your current state,
just who you are, that you are 100% absolutely loved by your heavenly Father.
And here's the thing, it's the same thing.
You might hear those words spoken to you, but what do those words actually mean to you?
What does it mean?
You is man, that you would be mindful of them.
This is this human worm dichotomy, right?
The worm says, how would you love me?
Why would you pick me?
Why would you do this to come down and be a worm with us?
And for some of you, this is this disconnection towards this, that you really don't believe
that you're loved by God.
You kind of have it in theory, but it's never actually connected to your life.
And so you live the up and downs of Christian life.
I feel really accepted.
Okay, now I'm kind of messing up and so I don't know if I feel so accepted right now.
The other aspect of this is that we would begin to understand that God made us lower than
the angels, but has given us this thing.
That we are in this unique position, that we understand both the spiritual and the physical,
that we understand who God is, and this is our soul that's been given to us that cries
out to be loved by him, but also we understand the greatness of who God is.
And so we misunderstand God's holiness oftentimes.
And we begin to think, you know, God's just kind of a help to my life, but not the overwhelming,
it's not this crazy thing that he has given to us that is just to be overwhelming.
There's a moment, I'll tell a story really quick.
When I was in high school and the Republican National Convention was in Houston and a few
of us, I know this is going to be really weird, and a few of us were asked to, as members
of a high school band, to play, to entertain some of these delegates.
And so I am, I'm in high school and I'm playing and I have a solo and I play my trumpet there
and there's not many people around because, again, it's a high school band, right?
But all of a sudden, this guy comes up to me and says, hey, man, I really enjoyed that.
Good job.
And I said, okay, thanks, and just kind of blew him off, and when we were done with
that kind of set of music, someone said to me, Keith, do you realize that that was Robert
Downing Jr. that just said that to you?
And I said, I had no clue.
It's the same thing for us, oftentimes, with God.
Is there going to be a moment in our life where we realize, oh my goodness, heavenly
Father, heavenly Father was revealing himself to us, and I completely missed it.
I lived my life on my terms and didn't realize that a holy God wanted to get into my world
and radically change it, that a holy God sent his son, not just to be cute and not just
for good Christmas stories, but to be able to do something that would radically change
my life.
And when I ignore him, when I live my life on the weekends like he doesn't exist, I'm
missing the point of it all.
And here's what this really means.
Let me give you four things that God with us means.
In verse 14 of Hebrews, it says this, since the children have flesh and blood, he's talking
about sending Jesus into this world and him aligning himself with us as people and calling
us his children.
Since we have flesh and blood, here's the thing.
He, too, shared in their humanity so that by his death, he might break the power of
him who holds the power of death.
That is the devil and free those who all of their lives were held in slavery by their
fear of death.
This is huge.
When you begin to understand that God is both holy and God is loving, the intersection
of that is to understand the power of that in our lives is to overcome the fear of death.
Now, you might say, I don't really fear death.
I want you to know that the permeation, sorry, that death permeates everything in our lives,
that everything is touched by death.
Every time we have things that we believe that aren't of God, this is the aspect of
death that is in our lives.
And so when you live by any kind of fear in your life, that is not you living in the
acceptance and the love of God with us.
That's not you understanding act three, that God is with you.
He came and he lived as a human in order to break the power of the fear of death that
we are held in slavery towards this.
He said, I've come to set you free.
I've come out of heaven because I love you so much to set you free from the power of
death.
So I'm overcoming the power of Satan in this world to set you free from all the things
that you suffer by, from all the things that haunt your life, from all the things that
cause you to have this fear in your world.
So the first thing you need to understand is God with us frees you from the fear of
death.
The next thing is that God with us reveals God's mercy and his faithfulness.
This is the character of God, that when you begin to understand that God loves you enough
that he sent his son to this world, that you understand, that you can walk back to him.
See, one of the most significant things is that when we begin to misunderstand the love
and acceptance of God, whenever we have these moments where we forget who we are, we forget
the love of God, we sin, we say, I'm going to go off my way, what happens is it's very
difficult for us to come back to God because what we believe is that we have to earn it,
that we're ashamed, that we feel guilty about something.
But when we understand who Jesus is as revealing himself to be full of mercy and faithfulness,
it means this, that there's no way, no place that you can walk that's too far away from
God redeeming you because he is full of mercy.
And not only that, there's no place where he's going to run out of his desire to chase
after you with his love and mercy.
He's faithful in this.
God is never going to let you down.
And for some of you, you need to hear that because you've been asking and you've been
hoping that God would intervene in a situation.
I need you to know that he is merciful and he is faithful in your life.
He's come to break the power of the fear of death in your life, that he is merciful, that
he is full of faithfulness in this.
Not only that, number three, God with us means that the sin that separates you from God is
paid for.
He says this, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.
That what Jesus did when he came and put on human flesh came out of heaven and he began
to live among us.
The sin that originally created distance, he paid the price, he atoned that.
He brought you back to the ability to have a relationship with God where you don't have
to be fearful that God is holding something over your head, that you don't have to be
fearful that you did something and didn't measure up to who God was going to be and
now he's mad at you.
Over and over, the thing that I hear that people say, but they really mean is this,
I think that God forgives me, but they live as if there's something that they're doing
to pay penance with God.
And when they get tired of paying penance, they say, I don't think I believe in God anymore.
I'm going to bail out of here.
People that reject God don't understand his love because that says once you have tasted
of God's love, you never want to leave it.
Once you've understand that you are fully accepted, you always are drawn back to this.
The most attractive thing, the most powerful thing in our lives, we were created this way,
is the unconditional love of Jesus Christ.
So when people begin to pull back from Jesus, here's what I know to be true.
They've heard the words that Jesus loves you, but they don't know what they mean.
They don't know what they mean.
Because Jesus, what he did is he came down and his life and death on the cross brought
you back into the relationship that you were intended to be in from the very beginning
in the garden, in the garden where they were naked and unashamed.
If God was in your presence right here, would you have shame in your life?
Would there be something, I don't know if God came that close to me, if I would really
want to experience that because there's some guilt that I have.
And if that holy God was to be in my presence, I think I would feel a little bit like I was
very uncomfortable in this.
So the incarnation, Jesus came so that you would feel absolutely comfortable so that
you'd be able to say, I'm naked and unashamed, there's nothing that I'm hiding from you.
The last thing, God with us means that Jesus understands you.
It says this, because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those
who are being tempted.
I think in our lives, more than anything else, one of the things that most deeply is meaningful
to us is when someone understands us.
Don't you think?
My wife all the time, we get into arguments, the one thing she says to me, I just want
you to understand me, Keith.
I don't necessarily want you to validate me.
I don't necessarily want you to encourage me.
I don't necessarily want to hear you say, I love you.
I want to hear you say, I understand.
Do you realize that Jesus came to this world so that he might be able to say to you and
to me in moments where we are suffering, moments that we are struggling, moments where we have
it difficult in our lives for us to be able to say, God, I need you in this moment and
for him to say, I 100% understand.
I get you.
I've been there so that we don't have a God who's far off, that we don't have a God who's
like, oh, you're out there, but I'm kind of doing my thing here, but that we begin to
have a God who is with us, a God who is with us.
So today, what I want you to get is that you would believe that God really loves you and
that that would not just be words that you hear a pastor say in a church.
Those would not just be things that you see, but in all of this stuff that you see around
in the time of Christmas that you'd be able to peer through the commercialism.
You'd be able to peer through all the competing themes and to be able to say overwhelmingly,
there's a miracle here.
There's a legendary story here and this legendary story that all of this leads to is that God
would care enough about us that he would come and dwell among us, that he would be able
to live the life that we should have lived to empower us to live a life connected to
our Heavenly Father.
Every night when I'm home, I sing a song.
This song is Jesus loves me to my three year old because Jesus loves me.
This I know for the Bible tells me so little ones to him belong.
They are weak, but he is strong.
And over and over, the hope is that he would hear those words.
But at some point in his life, those words would have meaning.
And those words would be connected back to not Jesus as this distant God, but Jesus as
someone who fully loves, accepts and wants to have a relationship with my son.
It's the same thing that I hope for you.
So I want to take a minute and just ask you if you would just to close your eyes real
quick about your head.
I want to ask this question to you.
If here in this moment, if Jesus in flesh, he came and he sat next to you and you could
have a conversation with Jesus.
What is it that you would ask him?
And what is it that you would want him to say to you?
What is it that you need to hear?
Would you be in that moment trying to hide anything from Jesus?
Would you be in that moment very uncomfortable with God in flesh next to you?
Would that be that moment where all that you knew about Jesus Christ, all that you understood
about Jesus was fulfilled in your presence?
And that overwhelming love would be the exact same love that you've come to experience.
See we get to celebrate God's presence with us.
And in a moment we're going to get to take communion.
And that communion represents this very thing that we're talking about, that his body and
his blood were here.
It combines the resurrection and it combines the crucifixion and it combines the incarnation
all together in this act.
That you indeed were here among our midst, that you weren't far off but you came near.
You were with us but not only that, you accomplished for us what we couldn't do on our own.
By your life and death and resurrection we now have the love of God and we have access
to that in our lives.
And so we're going to sing a little bit.
And as we sing I want you to be able to take a piece of bread and dip it into the juice
and be able to experience the reality of this legendary story in a very tangible way.
Let me pray for us.
God help us to see this, God I pray that we would get in this moment how significant your
love is for us.
And that would be more than just words, that would be incredibly meaningful.
Break through our hearts, break through these places that we've held you at arm's length
and allow us to experience your grace and your truth, your presence in our life.
In your holy name, amen.
