Advent 2023 - Week 3

Series. If you go to John chapter fourteen, where we're going to continue

there this week and next week and last week. If you weren't here,

we talked about John chapter fourteen is a little bit different view of the Christmas

story John chapter fourteen. Rather than being from the perspective of earth to heaven,

John writes it from a perspective of heaven to earth. It gives us

a glimpse of instead of from the visible to the invisible, from the invisible

to the visible. And as we look at this, we we get a

little bit different picture of those of that Christmas story and what's happening. So

we're going to begin in verse five, John chapter fourteen, verse five.

If you're there, say amen. If you're not, oh my, all

the old eyes read along, John chapter fourteen, Verse five. And the

light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. Underline

that if if you got a paper bible, put an underline under that the

darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God whose name

was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the

light, that all through him might believe. He was not that light but

was sent to bear witness of that light, that was the true light,

which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the

world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not

know him. Father, Thank you for your word. It's the only change

agent we have on the face of this planet. And I pray today that

you allow us to see differently than we've ever seen. Lord, imparture wisdom

deep at the fabric of our soul. Let it bring forth a harvest of

life, the lights of which we've never seen. In Jesus' name, Amen,

Amen, and amen. It says the light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness did not comprehend it. You know, during this season,

hearts are both softened and hardened. There's a there's a segment of society that

we live in in which this is the most generous time, the most loving

time, the time where people that that struggle with understanding and accepting things they

just seem to accept things a little easier during this season of time. But

it's also a time where there's a harsher view of God, a present reality

in people that looks and says, hey, you know, I just don't

know if that God is really who he says he is, I don't see

the love that other people see, and I'm having a hard time and they

have a hard time reconciling that. And I probably get those questions more during

this time of the year than any other season why these bad things happen and

why people have to struggle If God is a good God, but the light

shines in the darkness, and the darkness just simply doesn't understand it because it's

not a natural view, a natural perspective or point of view that we as

humans normally take. And our relationship with God it's different than every other relationship

that we have. When we think about those relationships that we have, our

relationship with our spouses, our relationship with our friends, our relationship with our

children, our coworkers, whoever it is, those are tangible relationships that we

see and we look at that we can have a response to, an immediate

response to the questions that we have. But our relationship with God is different.

It's a relationship with the invisible. It's a relationship with he who many

times ponders the question deep. I'm trying to say it as nice as I

can. He ponders the question deeply and give us a dramatic pause for effect.

God will you, And it seems like we wait and we wait,

and we wait only for God to say sure, just before time is up.

You know, that's one thing that you must master in your relationship with

Jesus, and that is this that the Lord is very rarely early, but

he's never ever late. He's a just in time God, because the just

shall live by faith. And then we jump down to verse ten in John

chapter fourteen, and it says he was in the world and the world was

made through him, and the world did not know him. I think that

we read about him, we sing about him, but a lot of us

really struggled to know him, to have that understanding, not to know his

not to know his acts, but to know his ways. See, the

Bible teaches us that Israel knew God's acts. They saw what God did,

They saw how God performed, They saw God move when he stepped into the

visible. Come on, somebody. But it says that Moses knew God's ways.

Israel said God has brought us into the desert to kill us, and

Moses says it's part of deliverance. They said he's brought us here to starve

us. And Moses said, wait till in the morning. He'll provide bread.

They said, we haven't had meat. He's a harsh god, a

mean god. And Moses said, I hear the wind blowing, and here

come the quail. Because when we shift our focus and we understand how to

view God, how to relate with God, a lot of the questions that

we have and that other people have are easily answered because it's not answered in

the visible, it's answered in the invisible. And Sewo Corinthians, chapter four,

in verse sixteen, it says, therefore we do not lose heart.

Say we, he's talking about you. He's talking about me, we not

they, We us we we we we. He's not talking about we we.

He's talking about we Amen we Therefore we do not lose heart, even

though our outward man is perishing. I want to bring a reality. Want

to show you something the Bible says. First of all, let's see how

many Orthodox Christian believers we have. How many of you believe that every word

in the Bible's true. Raise your hand sinfilible. Yes, okay, it

says you're perishing. I hate to bring that reality to you during Christmas.

But we're you closer to the end than you've ever been right now. And

here's the thing. A lot of people recall and draw back from that reality,

that struggle with mortality. But mortality is only meant for the flesh.

It's a visible concept that we see ourselves getting older. Every day. I

get more gray hair. I got three dark ones left, and I'm holding

on to them like never before. I mean, it's just they're there.

You say, oh, pastor your skin, you don't have any wrinkles.

This is free. This is you didn't give it an offering for this or

not. I'm gonna tell you how I stay wrinkle free. Every time I

see a wrinkle, I eat more and I fill it up with fat.

I just keep pushing them out. It's how you stay looking young and then

wrinkle free. It's free. I'll be your health coach too. Therefore,

we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, Yet

the inward man is being renewed day by day for our light affliction. That's

the one we struggle with. What affliction, any affliction? Oh you don't

know my affliction. I don't. But it's like, let me put it

in perspective for you. The Lord has promised us an eternity that eye has

not seen, ear has not heard, that is unfathomable to the human mind,

that is soul filled with glory. But yet because of our human perspective,

we struggle with the fact that bad things happen right now. And I

want to agree with you, they do that bad things happen, but not

completely grasping the understanding is as simple as this concept. Here's one hundred dollar

bill, and the Lord says, I have one hundred dollars for you.

This is your goal. Pretend like now, I mean, I know,

Heaven's more than one hundred dollars. It's an illustration. Here's heaven for you.

Here's one hundred dollars, this is yours. This one hundred dollars is

made up of five twenties. And you look at the one hundred dollars and

you say, I don't want the one hundred dollars because the twenty's torn.

I don't want that hundred because look how broken and tattered and shattered the twenty

is. Because the reality, the visible part of our lives are only a

mere fraction of the reality of our immortality of the eternality we have when we

trust the Lord as our savior. But people, because they don't understand,

because they don't know the King of glory the way we know the King of

Glory, they reject the hundred because they don't like the twenty. Now,

by show of hands, how many of you would take this hundred even if

the twenty was torn? How many would take both? Y'all getting neither?

And we look, everybody was getting excited, like this is going good.

People were stretching. They thought I was gonna say, whoever gets here first?

I saw it, for our light affliction, which is but for a

moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at

the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary,

but the things which are not seen are eternal. Why the bad things

happen because we caused them to happen. I don't mean that you're the reason

things are the way they are in your life. You may be listen.

If you're the reason and things are bad in your life, stop blaming God.

That just makes you a victim and not a victor. But the weight

of sin committed by humanity is the reason bad things happen. Reason good people

have hard times. That's why innocent children have terrible things perpetrated against them.

It's not because God is evil. It's because God doesn't look at life the

way we look at life, because he doesn't look from earth to heaven.

He looks from heaven to earth, and he sees the immense reality of glory

and that eternity. And when we step into eternity, all of that pain

and all of the hurt and all of the struggle is washed away and we

experience joy and the fullness of joy. So this present suffering, it's temporary,

and we're not buying our way by suffering. Because I'm gonna be honest

with you. When I look at my life, I don't count one area

of my life where I have suffered. I don't see one area of my

life where I've ever had to be sacrificial. And it breaks my heart that

other people have and I don't. And maybe it's the way I look at

it. I don't know, but that breaks my heart. But I want

you to know when I get to heaven and He looks at me, and

he says, I'm gonna reward everyone for suffering. I'm gonna be last,

because I don't think I've experienced that, and it breaks my heart that people

do. But the reality is we're looking at the visible rather than the invisible,

and when we see the invisible, the visible has a whole different experience.

Romans, Chapter eight, verse thirty seven. Yet in all these things

were more than conquerors through Him who loved us. You know that's a that's

one of those good Pentecostal scriptures, right, I mean, we who you're

more than a Yeah, you know, we like that one. We like

to preach it. Greater is he who is in you than he who is

in the world. You're more than a conqueror. That's the way we like

to prise it, because there's got power, you know, It's that it's

got some leverage there. But the reality is we may not conquer in the

visible. We may conquer in the invisible because death, hell, and the

grave have no hold over us. We have already conquered through Jesus. For

I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,

nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,

nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us

from the love of God, which is in Christ, Jesus our Lord.

If God is a god, how could bad things continue to happen? If

God is a god of love? And maybe you've asked these questions, God,

why does so and so have that? But I have this? If

you really love everybody? The saying why do I struggle and they don't?

Why in this season do some people get on a ground Christmas paper and my

stuff is wrapped in last week's newspaper. Just putting it in perspective for you,

because the temporal world in which we live dictates that things equate to love.

It's a performance based relationship, and inadvertently we all do it. Inadvertently,

we've all learned this type of love system. We perform to get the

affection and the attention of someone that we're either courting or married to, or

our children do it to try to get our attention. They think if they

perform a little better, that will love them a little more, that they'll

be a little more accepted. We equate that even on our jobs, if

I do a little more, if I work a little harder, I'll get

a little more money. Because those are all visible things, and because we

operate in the visible world, we think we have to have the same performance

attitude in our relationship with God. But God says, it's not about performance,

and I'm not going to perform for you either. It's about a love

that exists beyond those things that we easily understand, and it exists over in

the realm of the supernatural. And it says that for those of us who

are born again, who trust Him as our Lord, we're not casually dating

him, but we're married to him, that nothing will separate us from God.

You know, this is one of those scriptures that I believe is taken

out of out of context in a lot of theological teachings. It's one of

those that say, hey, you know, if you've prayed a prayer,

it doesn't matter what you do after that. Everything is going to be okay.

But I want you to know your relationship with Jesus is there is some

work there. You don't work to be saved, but you do have to

put in work to express your love, and there is nothing that can That

word separate is literally to tear away it's the image of a crowbar separating everything.

Let me just read it to you again. It says, nor anything

created, anything visible, can separate you from God's love. When the enemy

brings those thoughts into your mind, he is not actually separating you from God.

The struggles and the hardships and the things that you face, they don't

separate you from God's love. When you are going through a hard time,

it doesn't mean God loves you less because those things don't separate you from God.

Those are things that come into our lives, and we make the decision.

Oh, people don't like this. We make the decision based on visible

things to make decisions about the invisible, because the darkness doesn't understand it,

and He created it. But the world doesn't know him, but we know

him. I want to implore to you, I'm gonna get down on a

knee. I might not get back up, but I'm gonna get down on

a knee. Ricky, if I need help, you come up here.

Man. Don't let me strand it. I want to implore to you.

You know him, You've seen him move in your life and in others' lives.

Don't let the visible convince you that God's love is anything other than it

is, and that is perfect. That the struggles you face are common to

all men, that theations you face are common to all men, and that

He makes a way of escape, and the way of escape is always the

same running towards him and falling into his love. Here in this writing from

the apostle, John this perspective from Heaven to Earth. In his version of

the Christmas story, he's pleading, saying, God's love is enough. And

if you'll be patient, and you'll endure through what humanity brought upon itself through

its decisions and its choices, then you're going to have an experience the likes

of which is uncomprehendable. Is Christmas present to you? In First John,

Clay, you guys can come and get ready if you want to. In

First John, chapter four, verse ten, it says in this is love,

not that we loved God. Think about that for just a moment,

because isn't that backwards from how we think? It goes that we loved him

and he saved us. Says listen, it's not that we loved him.

It's not about our love, not that we loved him, but that he

loved us. That when we didn't have the capacity to love him because we

didn't understand. The world doesn't love Jesus. They have a misunderstanding of Jesus

because they don't know him. But he loves them, your greatest adversary,

your arch nemesis. Jesus loves them as much as he loves you. Not

that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to

be a propreciation for our sins, a satisfire, a savior from one who

stands in our place, a replacement. But he's so loved that he sent

someone to shoulder your sin, your intentional acts of disobedience. Huh, the

choices that you made to do something wrong? Have you ever got Have you

ever started down a path and you get that feeling I want to show hands,

and you get that feeling on the inside and you think yourself, ah,

yeah, I shouldn't do this now, I think this is this probably

probably wrong. Now raise your hand again if you can. If this also

measured up. But I went ahead and did it anyway. I felt it

was wrong. I knew I was going down the wrong path, but hey,

I did it anyway, Jesus says, Listen, I am your early

warning system. I told you what was wrong, you went ahead and did

it anyway, and I'm gonna shoulder that. Also. What a god we

serve that he isn't concerned with the visible. Do you see that He's not

concerned with that visible? Because his love exists in the place where it never

ends and it never fails, in the invisible. Beloved, If God so

loved us, we also ought to love one another. You may be here

for the very first time today, but I want you to know we've been

praying for you all week. Our love false far short of the love of

Jesus. But these guys got here early this morning, got everything turned on,

whatever they do practiced. Now listen, I'll be honest. I love

y'all, right, but I'll tell you that what y'all heard was better than

what I heard the first time this morning because they studied to show themselves approved,

because they wanted the best possible atmosphere for you, because you know what

they meant. I know you yet, but they love you because we've been

praying for you in everything we do, and so our community gets an opportunity

to experience God. The reason people struggle with why bad things happen to good

people. Is because most of the time, when those bad things start happening,

people abandon them. Jesus a people and they blame it on God.

To day, God is asking you to show love. And if you're here

today and you've never asked Jesus to be your savior, maybe you've allowed sin

to come between you and him. Your relationship is not what it should be,

what it used to be. This is a place not because of me,

because I'm the worst at it. This is a place where you're already

loved. This is a place where what you've done does not matter, and

what's been done to you matters incredibly much. This is a place will take

you just like you are, because the Lord has taught us to look past

the visible into the invisible. And today you have an opportunity to be embraced

by a love that your situations and circumstances cannot rip you from his hands.

Everybody standing with me all over the building today, I close most of these

moments talking about the Cross. I'm going to give you a different perspective of

God so loved the world. Jesus, the Son of God, the creator

of the universe, seated in glory seated in this place that we cannot imagine

because it's so beautiful, incredible, worshiped by the angelic host, that twenty

four hours a day there are elders falling on their face before him, and

angels crying out, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty,

who was and is and is to come to him be the glory.

And he looked today and he saw your brokenness, your loneliness, you're hurt,

your sin, and he said, hey, Dad, this is nice,

but if I need to go on, will Papa God looked at the

son and he said, hey, you know, here's the plan. I'm

not gonna send you clothed in armor. I'm gonna send you buck naked as

a tiny little baby, unable to fend for yourself, completely at the merthy

listen, completely at the mercy of those who I'm sending you to save.

Yeah, And I think Jesus looked at the Father he said, I can

do that. He said, but yeah, there's another thing too. You

know, there's not gonna be a doctor there, there's not gonna be a

warm crib. There's I think the story needs to be that, since there's

so much muck and Meyer in the people's lives that you're going to save.

That you need to be born in the muck and the mere. So I'm

gonna have you born in a stable surrounded by all those stinky farm animals right

there in the hay and manure and the draftiness of that part. I'm gonna

have you go, have you go there. Jesus said, I can do

that, Dad. He said, there's one more thing. You're not gonna

be visited by dignitaries. You're not gonna be visited by you know, the

Caesar's not gonna come by. I'm gonna send some shepherds and we're just gonna

tell them first, just some ordinary people, people that are not very highly

thought off, spend their time out by themselves. They're gonna come and they're

gonna say happy Birthday. But that's gonna be it. Jesus said, you

know what, Dad, I can do that. He said, Dad,

I'll do whatever you want me to do, because I know how much those

people mean to you. But I'll go and I'll carry their sin. I'll

shoulder their sin. I'll give my life, I'll abandon glory the protection of

the angelic host. I'll go forn as an innocent child, because I know

that you being reconciled to them means more than anything to you. Dad,

I'll go that's what he did for you. He gave up everything to meet

you here this morning, right at your point of need. So if our

Altar team would come one more time, and if you're here today, you

would say, I need to renew my relationship with Jesus or I've never had

a relationship with Jesus, and today I want to start a relationship with Jesus.

I want to ask him to forgive me of my sins and be the

lord of my life. If you're here today and that's you, I'm going

to count three, and when I get to three, if you're here and

that's you, I want you to step out from where you're standing and come

and meet one of these amazing people of faith and they'll lead you to an

encounter with Jesus where he'll wash away your sins and make you a brand new

creation. Don't look around and see if anybody else is moving. This is

about you and him. You've got to make this decision in your heart right

now. He's already done everything that he can do. This next moment is

yours. Where you step out, you do about this much in the journey.

It's on the count of three. I want you to step out,

and I want you to move one, two, three, Step out and

come right now. Come on, you say, hey, I need to

I got things in my life. I need to lay them down before Jesus.

Got to ask Jesus to be the lord of my life to forgive me

of my sins. If that's you, come on, come on, come

on, step out and move. The altars are open right now. As

the band sings, they're going to stay open. The Holy Spirit's dealing with

your heart. That's him you feel. Step out and come