The Name: The Wait Is Over | Part 4

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Well, good morning, Awakening.

Merry Christmas.

That was pretty good.

Let's try it one more time.

Merry Christmas! Ooh, that was incredible.

Great to be with you.

Thanks for joining us on a maybe a not-so traditional Christmas Eve service since it's not evening.

But I do love traditions.

I was thinking about some of our favorite traditions, and uh one of them on Christmas Eve.

So obviously I work, our staff, our team works, and we get done generally later at night, and uh we go home uh with our family and have La Villa raviolis every Christmas Eve.

Anyone else do that?

Okay, we have a few.

Thank God.

Last service I was alone, all by myself.

If you haven't done it, you you you you should.

It's delicious.

Uh we watch Elf though, also.

Anybody else watch Elf Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?

Yeah.

Got a clap and a cheer for Elf.

That's fantastic.

Um who opens a present on Christmas Day?

Yeah, a few of you?

Um, I mean Christmas uh Christmas Eve, thank you for correcting me.

Thank you.

Yeah, you're like, yeah, don't we uh?

Um no Christmas Eve opens a present, like you can do one present.

You ever do the one present?

And the one present's always pajamas.

What?

Right?

Uh who opens all their gifts on Christmas Eve?

Oh, we're going to your house.

Okay.

Yes, uh, we're going over there.

They open all their gifts Christmas Eve.

That's amazing.

Uh I thought uh for our not-so-traditional Christmas Eve service, I'd read from a not-so-traditional Christmas story.

We're actually really familiar with the Christmas story in the gospel account of Luke.

Uh, Luke tells it from the purview or the perspective of Mary, and we get to see this incredible unfolding of uh how Jesus, the Son of God, entered the world.

Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew tells it more from the perspective of, well, uh Joseph.

And so we get to see this picture and how uh Joseph experienced the welcoming of the Son of God.

And here's something I want to uh just maybe invite us in, because for many, not all, but for many, you've been to one, maybe two, maybe lots of Christmas Eve services.

And here's what I want to invite you in.

There's a there's been said before that in life we need to be uh reminded more often than we need to be instructed.

And today I want to remind you of some of the deepest, most incredible truths of all the universe.

And so if you got your Bibles or your phones or you just want to read on the screen, let's pick up the story of Jesus and how he entered the scene.

This is how the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, came about, Matthew chapter 1, verse 18.

Matthew 1:18

His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

Because Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had a mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She'll give birth to a son, and you're to give him the name Jesus, because he'll save his people from their sins.

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet.

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they'll call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.

You're to give him the name Jesus because he'll save his people from their sins.

There's just something about the name Jesus, isn't there?

Like it's powerful.

We sang about it.

I mean, why after 2,000 years later, are we still talking about this Jesus?

And even in our culture, in our world today, just think about this.

You've walked probably some malls that you were overcrowded, um, and parking spaces that were too tight, and you're in these stores, and songs are coming up, and yes, there's some about Santa Claus and some about other things, but then there's songs like the ones we sung that have these rich theology, like the name of Jesus is being spoken in and through every kind of department store across the United States.

There's just something about his name.

And so we want to just simply ask this question: what is it about the name of Jesus?

Where did his name come from?

Why is it important?

And what significance does it hold for you and for me this Christmas Eve?

You know, it's interesting.

Uh, when you think about naming kids, um, if you haven't done this, it's a whole process.

Um, and sometimes when you name your kid, you don't want to tell anybody uh because then you get people's opinion.

You're like, don't give me your opinion on naming my kid.

Just back off, buddy.

All right?

Um, but but we, you know, we have three kids.

My wife and I, uh, our oldest just came back from college.

Ella, she's 19.

We have, uh, yeah, woo.

You wooed for yourself.

Um oh, that was okay okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Um that would have been awesome though.

Uh so 19, then two boys, rider and mile, 16 and 13.

I was just remembering like the process of naming, and my wife is very Swedish.

She lived over there after college for a year.

We wanted a Swedish name.

I thought I was Swedish and then did Ancestry.com.

Um, I've been living a lie, guys.

I'm sorry.

I I'm not.

I'm 6% Swedish.

I know you look at me and go, Swedish.

Um, no, I'm not.

Uh it was very disappointing.

But back then I really thought I was like half Swedish.

Um, and so we wanted to name her Emma because it was just a beautiful Swedish name.

And then there's this TV show called Friends, and as they had a baby on that show, they named their baby Emma, and it was the number one name in the country.

And we were like, you know what?

Since we grew up with names that we had two, three, four people in our class, Ryan and Jenny's, uh, we decided let's try something unique.

Uh, and so we've we went with another beautiful Swedish name, Ella Marie Ingram.

Well, then we got another woo.

Okay.

Um and then when Ryder came along, there there was another constraint of naming the names, because uh, well, my granddad, he's Ralph Brown Ingram Sr.

And then my dad is actually Ralph Brown Ingram II.

I know some of you know him as Chip, and yes, I did just that's the cat's out of the bag.

I the insider, don't let that go beyond this room.

Um, but he's Ralph Brown Jr.

Chip is a nickname for you know a junior chip off the old block.

And so when I was born, they didn't want to name me Ralph, which I'm grateful for.

Uh and then they named me Ryan Brandon, so they kept the RB and they literally put I'm RBI on my birth certificate, RBI the third.

Uh and so I'm like, we're gonna keep the RBI theme going.

And so I needed a great R name.

And by the way, Jenny really named all of her kids.

She's great at naming everything.

She actually named Awakening, too, by the way.

Yeah.

Um, so if you need a name, go to her, not me.

Um, but I I, you know, there's not a ton of great R names, like Rufus.

I'm like, ah, just a little time.

Um and this is not a lie, this is absolute truth.

Um, I really wanted to name uh Ryder, that's his name now, but I wanted to name him Rhythm.

I thought it was gonna be great.

It got vetoed not only by Jenny, but everybody else that I told.

I thought it would be the best and be like, what up, Rhythm?

I thought that's what his friends would say.

They'd be like, what up, Rh?

You know, Rhythm and Blues Ingram, you know, RBI, we had it.

It yeah.

I know, I know.

I know now.

We didn't go with it.

So it's Ryder Britton Ingram III, and then Miles, our youngest, was named after Jenny's grandfather, never had a son, Miles Johnson, who was a Cal Poly professor, wrote all sorts of poetry and theology, incredible man, and one of the real special things was before Miles, uh grandfather, passed away, he got a hold of his great-grandson of whom his namesake was, and just really special.

You know, there's just something about naming.

We name our kids for all sorts of different reasons, whether it's popular or whether it has a meaning, whether it's after someone significant in our lives.

And I don't know if you notice as we're reading, but actually God named his son, which is pretty cool.

He took the time to name his son and he told us why.

And it wasn't because it was a popular name in that day, Jesus, though it was.

If you uh study, I don't know why you would, but if you did, um you would find out that Jesus was probably in the top 10 of baby names in ancient Palestine when Jesus was born.

It was a popular name.

Uh, and it was also a family name that would have been a name within the lineage of Jesus' line, kind of distant uh there, but there are still people in that line.

It was also the name of someone who was an incredible leader, so a hero of old, uh, because Jesus is actually the Greek version of the Hebrew name Joshua.

And so we know Joshua, if you know the Old Testament story or the Hebrew scriptures, of he led Israel into the promised land.

And God's like super queer.

I'm actually not naming Jesus for any of those reasons.

In fact, there's something about the very name of Jesus, the meaning itself, is the reason I'm naming, because I'm sending my son, and he is the embodiment of this name.

This is not just like a name, this is what it means in the flesh.

And this is what Jesus means.

Jesus in Hebrew, Yeshua, means God saves.

God helps.

God is my salvation.

You shall name him Jesus.

You shall name him God help.

You shall name him God saves, because he'll save his people from their sins.

You shall name him God is my salvation, like my salvation has arrived on the planet in the person of Jesus.

Jesus is God's salvation.

That's the reason he named him Jesus.

I like how theologian Del Bruner says it.

Jesus, also known as God help, is God's personal answer to humanity's primal cry.

Jesus, God help.

Every time you say the name Jesus, it's God help.

So the primal cry of your heart, my heart.

That prayer that we utter, that longing, that hoping.

God help.

God help, I just feel so hard.

Jesus arrived at the scene for you.

God help, I'm paralyzed by anxiety and depression.

Jesus changes everything.

Yeshua, I don't know how I'll get through this.

And every time you say the name of Jesus, you don't maybe didn't even realize it.

You're uttering the most fundamental, foundational prayer of the heart.

God help.

God, I need help.

God save me.

I don't know how I'll get through this.

Jesus.

A biopsy report shows cancer.

It's not the most wonderful time of the year.

God save my marriage.

God save my marriage.

God save my son.

My daughter.

God save my future.

Save my job.

I I feel like I'm wandering.

I don't know which way to go.

I just I'm so turned around.

God save my broken world.

You're to give him the name Jesus.

Because he's the answer to the primal prayer of your heart.

And to all the prayers that we utter, that we whisper, that we can't even barely get off our lips, and maybe not even off the ground or out of our hearts.

It's just the longing, the inkling.

Jesus says, I arrived.

I'm here.

And then he defines it and begins to help us see like the point because there's all those areas, there's all those things.

And we go, my marriage, my kids, my world, and we just see the chaos around us, and we're like, if if you could just fix that, and God says, actually, I want to go so much deeper, so much bigger, so much better than that.

You're the name of Jesus because he will save his people from their what?

Help me out.

Sins.

We don't like the word sin anymore.

I get it.

And part of it is we have this worldview, it's popular in our day-to-day, is to go, you know what?

Humanity, people, we're basically good.

We're basically good people.

And actually, it's the constraints, the contamination of culture, it's the societal norms that are just pressing in on us.

If I could just be me, if I could just be free to be me, the world would be a great place.

Don't change me, just love me, just let me be me, live my truth, and we'll somehow all live our truths and have this utopian society.

And the truth is we've poorly and badly misdiagnosed the brokenness in our world.

Because the problem isn't just out there.

The problem, fundamentally, for all of us, is in here.

In fact, if you ever spent any time with a toddler, you'll see the most basic truth about humanity.

Totally.

Because you'll see two things that are absolutely true but are contradictory.

One, you're made in the image of God and so have intrinsic worth and value.

You see this precious child, and you're like, that is so precious.

Two, you are broken and fallen, and there's something inside you that pulls away from all that is good.

Right?

I mean, you just see that.

You're like, this most precious child, and then what just happened?

Oh my goodness.

Right?

I mean, that's just it's what happens.

And you don't have to teach a toddler to lie.

They do that all on their own.

You don't have to teach a toddler to cheat, you don't have to teach a toddler to hide, you don't have to teach a toddler.

Uh, you don't.

They will hide and sneak and throw tantrums and yell and say, mine.

All on their own.

With no help of you.

Because there's something inside them that pulls away from the good, the kind, and the generous.

And the truth is there's something inside all of us that pulls away from the good, the kind, the generous.

Like all the brokenness in our world, all the messy relationships, all the things, whether it's a family dysfunction or uh, you know, something in the world, it goes back to the roots of this idea sin.

And sin is simply this: sin is the cancer of this world that perverts or distorts all that is good and beautiful.

The root issue behind every problem, sin.

And every single one of us is infected.

Our souls are contaminated, our relationships are contaminated, and it breaks relationships and friendships and our own well-being.

And then you see toddlers do this as well, because it's back to our nature, is as we do that, sin, it actually causes us to seek hiddenness and separateness and isolation.

That when we do those things, we just instinctively, it's amazing, kids will instinctively hide.

We withdraw, we pull back, we pull away from people.

In fact, I like how pastor and author Tim Keller wrote, he said, we have a profound, inescapable sense that if we were to exam, if we were examined, we'd be rejected.

Like if you were truly examined, if people truly knew you, you'd be rejected.

We have a deep sense that we've got to hide our true self or at least control what people know about us, which we do so expertly on social media.

Secretly we feel that we aren't acceptable.

That we have to prove to ourselves and other people that we're worthy, lovable, valuable.

Because I don't feel worthy.

I don't feel lovable.

I don't feel valuable.

Gotta help.

And if you really knew me, you wouldn't really want to be around me.

If you knew everything about me, you would want nothing to do with me, and we live like that.

And so the question then is how does God help you?

How does he help?

And we see another name, Jesus, one we're so familiar with at Christmas time, and they will call him Emmanuel.

God with us.

And they'll call him Emmanuel.

Like Jesus, God help, is God with us.

He's the with us God.

Like that cry, God help.

I don't know what's gonna happen to my future or my relationship.

God, I don't know what's gonna happen with my broken world.

And I don't want anyone to see the actual real world of me.

God sees all of it and he says, I'm coming to you.

I'm coming with you.

I'm connected, I'm not pulling away.

In fact, I'm not rejecting you, I'm coming for you.

This is the greatest promise this planet has ever heard that God is not just above us, but he became one of us and among us.

That God is not, you know, somehow distant or aloof.

He says, I'm right in it with you.

I promised you my presence, and then I became one of you.

It's what Christians call the great stoop of Christmas.

When Almighty God became a little human, vulnerable, became one of us, entered the mess of our world, leaned into the messiness, and even Took on our mess on himself.

You shall name him Jesus, for he'll save his people from their sins.

And they'll call him Emmanuel, God with us.

God help, Jesus, God help is personal.

God help, Jesus, God help is present.

Did you know that the most often command in the Bible is do not be afraid?

And depending on your version that you read, it's in there up to perhaps 365 times.

Some have suggested one for each day of the year.

But did you know what's coupled with that command?

Most often, all those times?

Do not be afraid.

Not because life's easy.

Because life's way harder than we care to admit, isn't it?

Do not be afraid because I'm gonna fix it all.

Do not be afraid because uh, well, there's nothing to be afraid of.

Now he says, do not be afraid, and most often coupled with it, for I am with you.

Like God thinks that no matter what you're going through, his presence is enough for you and changes everything about it.

Like God seems to think that his presence, his withness, the almighty one, his presence with you, the wonderful counselor, the mighty king, the everlasting father, his presence with you is enough for everything you go through.

Years ago, we were vacationing at a beach, and it was so fun.

Both my wife and I are beach kids.

We grew up in Santa Cruz, and um Ella was like four or five, and I was paddleboarding, having a time in my life, going out, you know, coming back in, going out, uh, surfing, and then hanging with the family.

And one time Ella says to me, Dad, I want to go out with you.

Can I go out and ride with you?

And I said, Absolutely.

I'm like, I gotta share this with her.

And so we put on a live vest and we begin to go past the surging breakers right at the beginning.

They were small, they weren't that big, but you know, some bumps.

But I wanted to get out where it was a little bit smoother, right?

You know, you're not in the break.

And so we paddle out there, and we're it's starting pretty well, you know, and so she's sitting in the middle just like this, and she's got hands on her knees looking around.

But then all of a sudden she notices that she's way farther from the shore than she's ever been before.

The waves, you know, I mean, you can only imagine at four or five.

This is the waves seemed huge out there.

And and then, you know, she's looking and going, like, the water's deep, she can't swim yet.

Yeah, I mean, she's got a life vest on, but it's just all of a sudden what started out as an adventure turned to just tear.

And she just grabs her knees like this, and she starts to shake and she's dad, take me back.

Take me back.

It's like the waves are too big, I'm too far from shore, it's so deep.

Take me back, I'm scared.

And I leaned over and I whispered in her ear, suck it up.

I didn't say that.

What did I say to her?

I said, it's okay.

Your dad's with you.

It's okay.

Your dad's with you.

Because honestly, if at four or five, if she's on her own in the middle of the ocean, that's a frightful thing.

That that would be treacherous, and you certainly could get caught in a riptide, swept off to sea, you know, a wave taker out.

I get it, but if you're on your own, and to be honest, there's some of us that are on our own going through life, you had no idea that that uttering of the primal cry, God help, he said, I'm with you.

And you've been trying to navigate it, and it is a frightful thing, and Jesus says, I'm here, and that's the beauty and the gospel and the good news of advents.

That when you say, God help, he says, I'm with you, I meet you, I save you, and I'll never, ever leave you.

But I think there's some of us, some of us who have cried, God help, this Christmas season.

We've gone through the motions.

We know the songs, and we know the passage, and like I said, I'm just reminding you of something you already knew.

But I think so often we go through life thinking it's all on our shoulders and forget that God's with us.

And our eyes are focused on the wind and the waves and the shore and the depth of the ocean, and we're like, I don't know what to do.

And God's like, I'm right behind you, I'm right with you, I got you.

In that moment, I remember, I just so wish Ella could see things from my perspective out there.

Like how that would have changed.

It wouldn't have changed the circumstances, but it would have changed the way she experienced them.

Yeah, the waves, they're bigger than you're used to.

We are farther from sea, from the shore.

And it is deeper.

But you're also on an adventure with your dad.

You're also on an adventure with your dad.

And he's got you.

He's with you, he's for you, he's leading you.

See, the reality is, is you're gotta get through today one way or the other, right?

I mean, you just gotta get through it.

We all do.

And you're either gonna do it with God or without God.

You're either gonna do it with an awareness that your Heavenly Father is with you, beside you, right next to you, or you're gonna do it without God.

And he's still with you, but you're just not aware of it.

And so I want to invite us this Christmas season to maybe do a not so traditional Christmas Eve.

Because I think our traditional Christmas Eve for many of us is come sing the songs, maybe feel warm, fuzzy, and go on as life as usual.

A not so traditional Christmas Eve, maybe for the first time, or maybe just being reminded.

Would you welcome Jesus this Christmas?

Would you welcome God help?

Would you welcome God with you into your everyday life?

You can go through it with God, with his love, with his protection, with his presence.

And so I just want to invite all of us, one simple prayer.

It's a welcoming prayer.

He responds every time, the name of Jesus, God help.

He responds with his presence.

Every time I'm with you.

And so, would you just kind of take a moment to pause in the busy, hurried chaos of the season?

Settle into your seat.

Where has the Spirit of God been working and moving inside of you?

Take a breath.

Close your eyes if you're comfortable.

It's simply this.

Just one little sentence to make it your prayer.

I open myself to the love and presence of God.

Jesus, you are with me.

I open myself to the love and presence of God.

Jesus, you are with me.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

Please subscribe to our podcast for access to every episode as they're uploaded.

And hey, we'd love to connect with you.

Take a next step by filling out our virtual connection card at awakeningchurch.comslash card.