The Present of God's Presence

Hey.

Welcome.

Good morning.

Church of the Grove.

Yep.

I'm so glad you're here.

It is so cold.

It's freezing.

It is just so way too cold these days.

It is.

I'm not built for cold weather.

Well, I mean, I feel like we gotta have this cold weather.

If there's gonna be a shiver or a nip in the air, there needs to be snow.

Yeah, I agree.

I mean, that's kind of my.

I agree.

If there's no snow, it's useless.

Yeah.

It is.

It's just not fun for anybody.

We hope you're enjoying the weather.

But you know what's not useless?

What's that?

Our time together.

That's true.

That's true.

God wastes nothing.

That's right.

Hey, I'm Brandon.

I'm Cody.

We're so glad you're here.

And uh we do believe that God's gonna speak to us this morning.

It's gonna be a great time together.

And we're gonna dive into uh a new series.

Alright.

Um we just wrapped our series called Seven, where we looked at uh the seven letters that are written to the churches in Revelation, which is really powerful.

Encourage you to go back and watch that or listen.

Uh but today we're jumping into a new series all about Christmas, um, and it's gonna be awesome.

I'm excited.

I can't wait.

Yeah.

I mean, what I mean what like what what about Christmas?

Can you give us a little sneak peek?

Well, I mean, you know.

Or yeah, play it close to chess.

Yes, I I a little bit of a teaser, you know, something about uh God becoming love bless.

He sends his son, Jesus.

I think it'll be like something out of loot, the incarnation, maybe like, or like an Isaiah.

I'll be like that stuff.

Like uh hey, it's gonna be a wonderful manual to you.

Didn't you guys do like an emmanual song?

Uh we did.

Yeah, it was great.

Turned out good.

Maybe we'll show that.

Maybe we will.

And maybe we sweet.

Well, uh, we had Shop of the Hero this weekend.

Yes, that was amazing.

Thank you for all of you who uh gave towards that, who volunteered and made that happen.

Uh as an amazing week.

Amazing day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Awesome, awesome.

Yeah.

Anything coming up that we need to be aware of?

There's tons coming up, so we would love for you to download the Church of the Grove app uh to stay connected with all things going on in the life of our church.

But uh a couple things to note, we've got a holiday uh schedule coming with Christmas Eve services.

So we are having services on the 23rd and the 24th, so lots of options at both of our locations, Walnut Grove and Social Circle.

So the 23rd will be at 5 p.m.

And then the 24th will be at 3 and 5 p.m.

So that's coming up.

Make sure you join us for Christmas Eve.

Invite somebody with you.

Uh it's gonna be a great time worshiping together, celebrating uh Christmas uh and the coming of Jesus.

That's very awesome.

So make sure you're making plans for that.

And then also, yeah, it's good.

Yeah, tons of joy.

Um on the 17th, we have our kids programs at both locations.

So that will be one service at 10 a.m.

And for you, Wanna Grove Peeps, you will be meeting at the Walnut Grove High School Auditorium.

Wow.

I did not realize how hip you were.

Peeps.

Yeah.

Shortening your words now.

That's what's that's what they do, right?

Yeah, I don't know.

Obviously, obviously, I'm not you know, it doesn't work, it doesn't work with me.

It's a thing, I think.

So they tell me.

It's okay.

Um so make sure that you make your plans for that.

So that's uh the 17th.

We've got a kids' services, kids program is gonna be amazing.

They're gonna be leading us uh all morning.

One service, 10 a.m.

at both locations.

Um, and then also we are launching a 5 p.m.

gathering in January.

So just want to put that out there on your radar.

Um, we will be launching a Wanna Grove at our Wanna Grove campus, a 5 p.m.

gathering comes January.

That's gonna be fantastic.

So love it.

Yeah, lots of stuff going on.

Well, that was a mouthful.

It was for what it'd be a mouthful.

That'd be a mouthful for us at yearful for them, right?

Yeah, okay.

Something like that.

Well, I hope that you uh, you know, got what you needed out of that spill.

So um, speaking of moving along, yeah, not that we were speaking of that.

We're gonna jump into worship.

Yeah.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Got some good stuff coming with worship, and then we are going to jump into the new sermon series.

So grab what you need, download that church to grab app, get the sermon notes ready to roll, uh, and we will see you guys on the other side.

Let's do it.

Our spirits by start showing just see now to free.

Jesus has conquered the club, and then you will be able to do that.

To go to my FCA bracelet and say, you know what?

God loves you.

We're separated from God because of sin.

But the heart of God was to be reconciled with humanity, and he sent his son Jesus.

And I just kind of went into the story and I said, that's what the last book of the Bible is about.

It's about Jesus.

And he will rule and he will reign.

And those of us that know him, the church will rule and reign with him.

And so I have an is another conversation where one of the heroes comes up to me and just short of weeping and crying in public, he says, I want to know how to be a better dad and a better husband and a better person.

I need somebody to help me.

Help me.

And then there was a guy that came up, and this this is this is the you know, people come up that just see what we're doing and they're asking.

They ask, they bring, they just start handing money.

And I'm like, don't here, let me tell you, let me tell you, you hand it to somebody else.

Don't hand me.

Preachers of money don't go together.

So just hand it to somebody else.

Well, we'll accept we'll accept it.

But this guy comes up at the end and he says, What are y'all doing?

And so we got in a conversation, and he was, he, he saw uh some of our heroes doing a podcast, a first responder podcast, and and he starts asking a bunch of questions.

And I and I'm gonna be honest with you, he he um he was all messed up in his theology.

And so every time I started trying to go into the gospel, he said, Oh, I know I believe that.

I believe that.

And then he would kind of you know try to take me off track.

And and I, you know, I was not going to be denied the opportunity of sharing the gospel.

I said, listen to me.

But there's a lot of people, and I and y'all know it in our world that are confused, they're they're messed up, they're broken, and they need the clarity, the simplicity, the visibility, the observable living out of the hope that is found in Jesus.

And that's what shop as a hero, that's the heart behind it, that's the vision behind it, that we would be Jesus for a day to people who serve us, our communities, every day, but they see just they're constantly seeing trauma and brokenness, and that they would have an opportunity to experience the warmth of what it's like to just walk with a child and to see their eyes light up and for us to minister to children and their families and offer hope in a visible, practical way, and and to be able to hopefully have these conversations.

We're not there just to give presents away.

We're there to be Jesus.

And that's what Christmas is about.

That's what Christmas is about.

Is anybody already stressed out about Christmas?

I mean, we've hit, we we hit the ground running with shot with a hero.

We do every year.

But but and I listen, I love Christmas.

I'm gonna be honest with you, it's different with my kids growing up than it was when they were little.

It's just different.

And I'm gonna be honest with you.

I love all the Christmasy stuff.

But about two weeks into December, I'm done.

I'm done.

I'm I'm okay if we let's let's we don't sing any more Christmas music.

If we don't have any more life, I'm okay with all let's go back to life as normal.

You know, I'm uh I've watched Elf.

I've watched, you know, it's a wonderful life.

Uh it's I've got a couple laughs in me.

I've cried a few times, and I'm ready to move on.

And here's the question as we move into December.

What are we preaching on this year?

What are we gonna preach on?

Well, we're gonna preach on the same thing we preached last year.

Now, did you hear the tone of my voice?

It wasn't real positive.

And I'm sitting around thinking, man, we gotta figure out how to take the same message and package it a different way.

And then I realize, you know what?

I don't have to package it a different way.

It's all about Jesus, nothing but Jesus, everything Jesus.

Every day, 365 days of the year.

And so Christmas celebrates the present.

We like presents, don't we?

I like presents.

I like presents.

You want me to send you my list?

I like presents.

But Christmas celebrates the present, the gift of God's presence.

God's presence.

And so as we think about what are we going to teach or what we're gonna preach, sometimes this idea of familiarity breeds contempt.

It's like, okay, I I there is something wrong if I ever feel like this message preached the same way every week grows stale or grows old.

The simplicity of the gospel.

To understand that Christmas is about God's presence becoming real in our life.

And so let's just take a journey a little bit this week and look at the very beginning where God created everything, including He created man and He created woman.

The Genesis story says that God spoke everything into existence, the world and everything that's in it.

But here's two things I want you to see and that I want us to highlight is that God creates human beings in his image.

You and I are different from the rest of all creation, from the rest of all of the animal kingdom.

I hate to tell you this, but your doggy and your kitty cat are not created in the image of God.

They're not, they're different.

Listen, we stand apart.

You and me stand apart from the rest of creation in a significant way from everything else that God has created.

Humankind, Genesis 127, humankind carries with it the DNA of God.

Man and woman are sacred parts of God's creation, unlike anything else that's been created.

Don't be misled into believing the lies that seek to diminish the value and the significance of who you and I are.

Humanity.

Now we're not the highest in the cosmos.

We're not even close to being like Jesus.

We're not even close to having the character that God Almighty has, but he created a special.

The second thing is that God, God's breath brings life.

Genesis 2, 7, he said, it says, then the Lord God formed the man from the from the dust of the ground.

He breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils, and the man became a living person.

God speaks all the elements of creation into being, but when it comes to humanity, humankind, not only are they created in his image, but they're delicately and intimately created and formed.

You can see the handiwork of God's work.

Psalm 139 speaks of this, 13 and 14, because you made all the delicate inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb.

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex.

Your workmanship is marvelous, how well I know it.

And so this is a picture of how we're created, how we're formed.

And because of us being created in the image of God, we are able to relate.

We are able to have a relationship with God.

We are able to be fully known and we can fully know that God is real.

Adam and Eve were created to experience and they dwelt in the garden.

They walked with God in the cool of the day before sin entered the picture.

We're created for God's presence.

That's what we're created for, that picture of walking with God in the garden.

That's what we're created for.

And we get a taste of it.

We get a taste of it as we hold a baby.

We get a taste of it as we see a child's smile on the first Saturday of December.

We get a taste of it when you see someone baptized.

You get a taste of it when we sing and we we sense and we feel the presence of God because the Holy Spirit is residing inside of us.

We get a taste of it, and there's going to be a day, there is a day to come where we will it won't be a taste, it'll be the whole deal.

Hallelujah.

And so we see these glimpses through Scripture in the old covenant.

We see it.

God provides a sacrifice, a supernatural sacrifice that prevents, that provides a sacrifice.

So he doesn't have to sacrifice his son Isaac.

Abraham doesn't have to sacrifice his son Isaac.

God's presence comes to Moses supernaturally through a burning bush.

God rescues his people from Egypt.

He meets them in the desert.

We see it.

We later see the forming of the tabernacle and the temple.

And these are beautiful things because they contain the very presence of God, but they were limited.

There was a limitation because only so many people, only the super spiritual, the high priest, the highest of the priests, could go into the Holy of Holies.

Not everybody could do that.

Everybody else had to stand outside and imagine what it was like.

But because of Jesus, we are all invited to come boldly before the throne of God is what the Hebrew writer of Hebrews says.

We all can come, we all can experience his presence.

And then ultimately, what we see after 400 years of silence, all the prophecies had been given.

Four hundred years of silence.

Here comes Jesus.

Born as a baby.

But listen, that's that's not the beginning of Jesus' existence.

As we talked about and read in Revelation 1, he is the Alpha and the Omega.

He is the beginning and he's the end.

He is the one who was and is and is to come.

He is God.

He is God, but He instead of coming in the form of some conquering force, he comes in humility.

He comes as one of us.

So we can know him.

Blaine Pascal says this as we think about the purpose and the meaning of Christmas, he says there is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person which any created thing cannot fill.

But only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.

Augustine, the theologian from the early church, one of the church fathers, he says, You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.

And so John 1 is a simple passage, but a significant passage.

Because it speaks to the Christmas story.

Even though we don't think probably of the Gospel of John as being part of the Christmas story, like we think of maybe Matthew and we think of Luke.

But here's what John writes, verses 1 through 5 of chapter 1.

It says, in the beginning, in the beginning, the word already existed.

Who is the word?

Who is the word in this passage?

Who's the word?

Kingston?

Say it loud.

You're right.

If you're not sure about it in church and you are asked a question, the best answer is always Jesus.

Right?

I mean, if somebody says, hey, what's what's gray and small and has a bushy tail and climbs trees?

And if you're in Sunday school, say Jesus.

Right?

I'm sorry, that's a bad joke.

In the beginning, the word already existed.

The word was with God.

And the word was God.

He existed in the beginning with God, and God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him.

The word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

And so John is speaking to Jesus', his omnipresence.

He's always been.

Never was.

He is an agent of creation.

He is, as God is speaking creation into existence, Jesus, the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, they're all three involved together in creation.

Jesus was there speaking, pointing, laying foundations, putting the planets into orbit, giving, giving the system of this world, what we would call um uh all creation, significance and meaning.

Jesus was in the beginning.

He was with God and he is God.

And then verse 14, here's what he says.

So the word became human.

Some translations will say the word became flesh.

The word became human and made his home among us.

He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness, and we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father's one and only Son.

So here's the Christmas message is that God, the God of all creation, comes to be with humanity.

That's the Christmas message.

Wayne Grudham, he's one of my favorite, favorite theologians, especially modern theologians, he says this, it is by far the most amazing miracle in the whole Bible.

Far more amazing than the resurrection, and more amazing than the creation of the universe.

The fact that the infinite, omnipotent, eternal Son of God can become man and join himself to a human nature.

Forever so that infinite God became one person with finite man, will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and the most profound mystery of all the universe.

And so, you know, that's that's the kind of things that I've got to just put on my wall next to my desk.

And when I get around to November of next year and I think, what am I gonna preach on in December?

Or whether it's October, November, and and rather than thinking or feeling, you know, this this, and y'all heard my tone, man.

What am I gonna preach on this year?

It's the same thing I preached on last year.

Yes, it's the same thing I preached on last year.

It's Jesus.

Jesus became a human being, God of the universe.

He came and he walked among us.

He healed, he talked, he cast out demons, and then he surrendered his life to die on a cross to be the sacrifice of all time once for all to set humanity free from the enslavement to sin and death and the grave that we could walk in freedom, even in the midst of hurt and pain and difficulty and sickness and all the other effects of sin on this world.

There is a joy within my inner being that lights up because of Christmas.

My wife's gonna be in the next service, but she'd probably say, right there.

Here's Paul, Paul.

I I mean, just read through the New Testament and start picking out passages.

This is this is from Colossians chapter one.

Christ is a visible image of the invisible God.

He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation.

For through him, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.

He made the things we can see and the things we can't see, such as thrones and kingdoms and rulers and authorities in the unseen world.

Everything was created through him and for him.

He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.

Christ is the head of the church, which is the body.

He is the beginning, supreme over all, who rise from the dead.

So he is the first in everything, for God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ.

And the church says, Yes.

And so my wife, my you know, she grew up in church, and y'all y'all heard me share.

I mean, she she went to church for nine months before she was born.

And so her family, I mean, every Christmas, and this is just nothing really fancy, they baked a cake.

Every Christmas.

And on Christmas morning, they sang happy birthday to Jesus.

And and and I I love that, the simplicity of it.

We we we did that with our kids growing up, but from a theological perspective, here's the truth.

Christmas isn't a story about Jesus' birthday.

For how can you celebrate someone's birthday when they have no beginning that you can identify?

And they have always existed.

So Christmas is not Jesus' birthday, but it is.

Philippians two, five through seven.

The heart of Jesus.

The heart of Christmas.

You must have the same attitude.

Make it all about Jesus.

It's more, it's it's about the story of God becoming moving.

Climbing or descending, not climbing, descending into our life.

What we celebrate is that God comes to us.

We didn't climb up the mountain.

Instead, he came down.

He didn't come to us because we had because we had something to offer.

He didn't come to us because we were good or had anything good to offer.

He couldn't imagine spending eternity without us.

God is all sufficient.

He doesn't need us, but he wants us.

How do we experience God's presence?

Well, first of all, we as as Philippians says, it says, Take, had the same mind in you that that was in Jesus.

Jesus humbled himself and he surrendered.

And so we come to God in the same way.

We surrender.

We say, God, I can't, but you can.

And because of your giving us the gift of Jesus, I can have life and I can have your presence.

The Gospel of Mark says it this way.

Jesus says, the king of God is here.

The kingdom of God is here now.

Repent and believe the good news.

And so repent is to turn and move toward Jesus.

And when you repent and believe the good news, you get the Holy Spirit as a gift.

You get the presence of God as a gift.

It doesn't mean that all of your pain is going to go away.

It doesn't mean everything is going to be perfect because we live in a world that is broken and we live with the effect of sin.

We live between garden.

It will be a play for people.

It'll be a brand new guard.

There is no pain.

There is no suffering.

There's no hurt.

You can't imagine it.

We can't imagine it.

But we have the ability to have that.

We were able to experience between those two guards, we're able to experience God's presence.

And our response is to remain it and believe.

Regardless of how you feel.

If you feel like you have no word, if you feel whatever you feel.

We thank you.

We thank you for the hope that we have in Jesus.

The Lord in this busy, crazy season.

Some of us are so excited.

Some of us feel a bit of dread.

Some of us are good for a couple of weeks.

But may we be reminded day after day.

May we simply just be.

May we preach the gospel to ourselves.

To be reminded that the gift that God has given us, the greatest gift, is Himself.

It's His presence.

And He gives us the power through the Holy Spirit to walk in His presence.

And God, may we be willing to encounter people, to speak to people, to smile at people, to step into conversations and offer hope where there is confusion, to offer truth, where people are blinded.

And Father, I pray that you would use us as your people, the church, to bring this Christmas back to what it's really about.

And it's a gift of your prayer.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Can we spend a few moments closing and worship?

Hey, thank you guys so much for worshiping with us this morning.

Man, we hope you're in challenge.

You were challenged, encouraged by God's word.

And I know we talk about it every year at this time of year, but just being reminded of the gift of the incarnation.

Emmanuel, God is with us.

And to know that that's the story arc of scripture.

That's the story that God has been writing from the very beginning.

And we see that fulfilled in the life of Jesus and Him coming.

And so, man, we hope that you're encouraged by that truth this morning.

And we would love to help you take any next steps that you feel like God might be calling you to.

So we believe that this is a lifelong journey of following Jesus.

So no matter where you're at on the journey, there's always a next step for you.

And we would love to help you take that.

So if you would take Start to Follow to 97000, Start to Follow all one word to 97000.

And again, we'd love to just come alongside you and uh help you take some next steps.

That's right.

That's right.

We're so glad you guys joined us this morning.

Thank you for hanging out with us.

And we just asked that you would just um let us know if there's anything that we can do.

We got lots going on.

So again, download that Church Drive app and you can stay connected with everything that's going on in this crazy busy season.

Season, season.

I can't, yeah.

It's fine.

It's fine.

I'm thinking about grilling, so sorry.

Anyways, um, seasoning.

Yeah.

Okay.

I guess.

All right, cool.

Uh, but anyways, we hope that you guys have uh a great Sunday.

We hope you have a great week.

Um, and again, if there's anything that you could that we can do for you, please let us know.

We'd love to uh partner you, partner with you in any way we can.

And I'm gonna stop talking because I evidently cannot say words.

So don't forget about Christmas Eve services coming up 23rd, 24th, uh, both of those days at both of our locations, and then also kids programs coming up on the 17th.

Man, make plans to be there.

It's an exciting season.

So, yeah, make plans to be with us.

We love you guys.

Hope you have a great week, and we'll see you next Sunday.

See ya, you're not gonna be able to get the bigger.