Christmas Eve 2018

This is the word of the Lord, and we say thanks be to God for that word because we get two names out of that passage that are incredibly meaningful to us.

We get this name Jesus and we get this name Emmanuel.

And so we're going to spend the next 15 minutes or so and we're going to talk about these two names because we say them a lot.

We sing the name Jesus a lot.

We sing it a lot.

We say the name Emmanuel a lot.

We sing that name or we hear that name.

And so we're just going to take about 15 minutes.

We're going to talk about these two names, what these names mean, and possibly what they might mean for your heart and for your life.

So a month ago, uh, I was in my office Sunday morning.

A month ago, I was in my office, I was reviewing the sermon for the morning.

It was about nine o'clock, and my phone buzzed.

Uh it buzzed.

I looked over and it was a report.

My phone was giving me a report on my iPhone usage.

Is anybody getting these?

I I didn't, I didn't I don't know how it started.

It just started.

Um, one of those things that just started, so I didn't sign up for it.

I'm not sure.

But it started, and I looked at it and I saw my usage for the week, and I thought to myself, oh, this is interesting because I don't want to be on my phone all the time.

So this is this could be this could be helpful.

This could be something kind of fun for the next few weeks or next months.

Maybe maybe this could help me with this part of my life.

And so uh that next week I sort of thought about it some and and then the next Sunday, sure enough, same time, my phone buzzed.

I was preparing for the sermon, I looked down, and my my phone usage was was down.

It was less.

And I immediately felt superior to my wife, which I was sure had more usage than me.

And and even like the next day, I was in the line at Chipotle, and everybody's on their phones, and I refused to get my phone out because I knew I could get that usage down even further.

But then that next Sunday, something happened, and what happened was my phone buzzed again.

I'm in my chair, I'm at my desk, going over the sermon, and my phone buzzed again, and my usage was up.

You know, right?

Like I tried harder and my usage was up.

It's sort of demoralizing to some extent.

And in each Sunday, the past month or so, my phone has done this.

I don't know.

It has buzzed, it's given me a report, like a divine watcher over me, reporting to me.

And yesterday it did it.

And even before I looked at it, whether I was winning or losing, I was filled with anxiety.

Even I didn't even know if I was winning or losing.

I was filled with anxiety.

And when I was improving, I I did feel better than you.

I mean, all of you.

I really did.

Like I'd see you out or you were on your phone, and I felt, I really did feel better.

And and then when I wasn't improving, like the week where I got the bad report, I I felt sort of ashamed.

I felt like I should have used my time better.

I should have been reading C.S.

Lewis with that additional 45 minutes that I went over from the week before.

And this is what this is what a life of scorekeeping does.

It'll eventually end up with this.

It ends up with either pride or despair.

And scorekeeping is a part of this life, right?

I mean, we we have grades, uh, we have workouts, we have we we have chore charts, we have bonus structures, right?

So it's a part of this life.

It will, scorekeeping will govern this world.

But as soon as we let it govern our inner life, we have we have moved into judgment.

As soon as we let scorekeeping begin to inform us about our righteousness or our worth, we've moved into judgment.

So these two names, right?

In Matthew 1.

You'll call them Jesus, you'll call them Emmanuel.

Names in the Bible mean something.

They lead us somewhere, they're not arbitrary.

So, point number one is this, we'll make a few points as we go.

Point number one is this about the name Jesus.

Jesus means Savior.

That's what the name means.

Jesus means savior, which means you don't have to be your own savior.

Okay, we're together.

That was great.

That was wonderful.

We're not perfect, right?

I mean, it took you five seconds.

I thought it would take two.

We use our phones too much, we're prideful, we're judgmental, we are.

Uh we're not, we don't listen as much to other people as we should.

We're not as kind as we should be.

Sometimes we're kind, uh, but then we're kind of kind with selfish motives.

Sometimes we don't even realize the selfish motives until like three years later, and then you go, oh, that's what that was about.

Sometimes we love things too much that we shouldn't love.

Sometimes we love our work too much, we love our bodies too much, we love our money too much.

And I don't say any of that to say, like, shame on you or shame on me.

I say that just to say, we're not perfect, right?

We're just not perfect.

That's why we started with confessional prayer.

We're not perfect.

And this Jesus doesn't show up and come to us.

This incarnate God doesn't show up to help us with our report.

He doesn't show up to come and give you a gold star for all the good kids.

That's not what he does.

He comes to save the lost, heal the broken.

That's what Christmas is.

It's a gift, it's headed to the cross where gloriously this gift of imputation occurs, right?

Our sin is moved over to Jesus on the cross, and his righteousness is given to us.

We talk about the prodigal son story in our church a lot.

I feel like I actually went back and searched the last time we talked about it, and it'd been about three months.

And it's sort of about on average, about every three months, it pops up in a sermon.

And the reason why is it helps us see ourselves so clearly, and it helps us see the welcoming heart of God so clearly.

So let me remind you of the story.

So the story that never gets old.

There's a family, there's a dad, there's two sons.

The younger son comes to the dad.

Dad probably has a good bit of money, some amount of money, enough to have an inheritance that you want, and the younger son comes to the dad and says, Hey, I want my inheritance now.

Can I have my portion now?

Which would have been offensive.

I mean, that would even be offensive today.

And the dad says, Oh, that's fine, you can you can have it.

The son takes the inheritance, he runs off to another country to do his own thing.

This would sort of be like us saying to God, I'm good, like I'm good, like I understand like you want to do the saving thing with me, uh, but I'm good.

I don't really need you in my life.

I don't need your love.

I'll be my own savior.

Give me my inheritance, I'll go do my own thing.

So this young son, he goes off to another country and he's partying, he's spending, he's he's got he's having a great time.

He thinks he's having a great time, and he is living it up, and then the money starts to run out, and the money does run out, and then he's broken.

He's broken financially, he's broken morally, eventually starts to work for a farm, he's starving to death.

He's feeling the weight of all of his mistakes, he's feeling the weight of his shame, and then the judgment begins.

I'm a failure.

I'm not enough.

I have nowhere to go.

He's at the end of himself.

He's lost.

And Luke 15 says he came to his senses.

He remembered his dad.

He prepares this little speech, right?

Like, like, I'm you know, I'm repentant, I'll work my way back in, just hire me in as one of your servants.

He prepares this little speech to come back, he's gonna work his way back into the families.

He thinks this is how it's gonna work, and it's not how it's gonna work.

At verse 28 of Luke 15, I'll read the passage.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him, was filled with compassion for him.

He ran to his son, threw his arms around him, kissed him.

The son said to him, Father, so he's starting out a speech, he's ready.

Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father said, right, so so the son is ready to work in this relationship in one method, a little bit of merit.

But the father said to his servants, quick, bring the best robe, put it on him, put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, bring the fattened calf and kill it.

Let's have a feast and celebrate.

For this son of mine was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found, so they began to celebrate.

So the father runs to him.

No report, right?

Like no report needed.

No, like, like, hey, where you been?

Hey, where'd the money go?

How'd you divide that up?

Where do you have any left?

No report required.

Just grace over him.

No shame, no shame on you.

Grace on you.

Then there's the elder son, which I've related to probably more in my life, is this elder son.

This elder son didn't like any of this.

He would not have liked Christmas, this elder son.

All these years I've been slaving away for you, dad.

You've never given me a party like this.

See, right, right, he's thinking, my little brother, he's disrespected you, he's disrespected the family.

He didn't deserve this.

And at the very least, if we let him back in, he should have to work.

And this brother is proud of how good he is.

He's judgmental.

He's self-consumed with his own record.

He makes himself feel better by comparing himself to other people.

And he has no ability to extend compassion to other people.

He's thinking, what's this free absolution stuff?

What's this free acceptance stuff?

What's that?

The elder brother thinks that the younger brother should have to work his way to the family, and the elder brother thinks that he should have to work to keep himself in the family.

But verse 31, the father says to the older brother, hey, you're always you're always with me.

Everything I have is yours.

God's not the divine watcher over you, over either of these brothers.

He's not the divine watcher going, shame on you.

I'll send you your report on Sunday morning about how good you are.

The Father's saying, grace over you because of my goodness.

You don't have to save yourself.

You can stop doing that.

You don't have to earn your forgiveness or righteousness with God or worth in this world.

You can stop.

You can lay that down.

Jesus means Savior.

Second name, Emmanuel.

Emmanuel means God is with us, which means you are never alone.

About five years ago, a good friend of mine passed away.

It was sudden and it was tragic.

I went to his house where his parents were and we wept and we tried to plan the next couple of days.

And the day before the funeral, I was at home.

I was prepping for my first funeral.

I'd never done a funeral before.

It was my friend's funeral, so I was grieving, I was sad, I was trying to hold it together, and all these feelings.

And I get a text from my mentor at the time, his name was Jim.

And Jim he texted me, he said, What time are you leaving for the funeral in the morning?

And I said, 9 a.m.

He said, That's great.

I'll be at your house at 8:45 to drive you.

And that was a little unusual, it's strange to me because Jim didn't really know my friend who passed away.

Jim wouldn't know probably most of the people at the funeral.

But he said, I'll be there.

So he shows up at our house at 8.45.

He's dressed in his suit.

He drove me.

He walked beside me.

He stood beside me.

He got the mic from the tech guy.

He put the mic on me.

While I'm talking to the musician and working stuff out with the family and how everything's going, he went and got me a cup of water.

And my friend was still still dead.

And they were still grieving all over.

But there's just something powerful.

To know you're not alone.

It doesn't solve all the problems.

But just to know you're not alone is a powerful thing.

See, God's presence doesn't mean your problems are gone.

It doesn't mean you're perfect.

It just means God desires to enter your mess, your imperfection, your brokenness, your wounds, your loss this year.

Your hurt.

And to love you as you are, and to begin healing you in those places.

There's this amazing verse in Galatians.

It ties this up pretty well.

I don't know, maybe I just love this verse.

Galatians 4, 4 through 7.

It says this but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

And we could say adoption as children.

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba Father.

So you are no longer a slave, but a son.

A child.

And if a child, then an heir through God.

So we aren't under the law anymore.

What that would mean is we don't have to record and report our righteousness to God to be valuable or to be righteous.

We are free from the righteousness report.

We're also not valuable because of our resumes.

We're not valuable by what we produce or who we can attract.

The Spirit is proclaiming in you that you are beloved, and inside of you a cry can come out that calls God Abba Father.

Now that's a crazy thought to the people at the time that would have received this letter.

The Jewish people at this time, they used the name for God Yahweh.

We spell in our Bible L-O-R-D.

They spelled it Y-H-V-H.

And some Jews didn't even pronounce that name aloud.

They just wrote it.

Because they had such awe for God.

And it was a distant awe.

So Ahba Father was a far, far way out idea.

Now some other Jews believe that that spelling Y-H-V-H was as close as you could get to spelling out the sound of breath.

Perhaps their way of saying that's how near, that's how present, that's how with us he is.

Which brings us to our last point, point number three.

And it's a long point, it's it's wordy.

I just admit it, but I would I liked it.

God is always and forever and his saving righteousness and saving wholeness being proclaimed over and in you.

God is always and forever in his saving righteousness and saving wholeness being proclaimed over and in you?

What if, what if you are not the accumulation of your achievements or your righteous deeds?

What if you're a child?

What if Jesus is so gracious and so sufficient that there's no record of your good and bad deeds?

There's just a record of his righteousness?

What if every time you're afraid or burdened, you are also always immersed in God's presence and power and freedom?

And what if, what if all this faith stuff, all this faith stuff is always about his love and pursuit of you before your love and pursuit of him.

My brothers and sisters, may you rest in the Christmas story.

May you know Jesus as Savior.

And know this Emmanuel who is always with you.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your goodness and righteousness, which is what we need.

May we know Jesus as Savior.

May we know Jesus as Emmanuel.

May we know this nearness that you are always proclaiming over us and in us, saving righteousness and saving wholeness.

Would you help us in our lack of faith to trust you in greater ways and honor you with our lives?

In Jesus' name.

Amen.