A MetaChurch Christmas: O Come O Come Emmanuel with Pastor Lee Wong

Welcome to the Medichurch podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at Medichurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

Well, I'm thrilled to be back with such a convicted and committed community, you guys, MetaCurch, and it's always my joy and privilege to serve your MetaChurch team.

And honestly, I am especially excited to be here today as we kick off this new series that Pastor Clayton told you all about because I am a huge Christmas enthusiast.

Like, true story, I start celebrating Christmas the Tuesday after Labor Day in September.

Every single year I have this tradition where Labor Day hits and I start putting on the Christmas music.

I just love it.

It's the most wonderful time of year for me.

And I do recognize, however, that such is not the case for many of you or many of the people you know.

I understand that this time of year can be incredibly difficult for folks, especially as we are faced with super stressful schedules of having to plan and coordinate visits with our blended families and having to pretend to play nice with family members we don't even like at gatherings, or when we're faced with having to get creative with our finances, to buy gifts with money we don't have, so that when our kiddos go back to school, they're not wondering why Santa Claus missed your house, or when we're faced with the loneliness we feel because it's cold outside and we have no one with whom we can cuddle and watch Netflix, and whenever we're faced with reminders of loss of certain relationships that we once had, or the loss of a loved one, and all the while, despite all of that, all the while we have to crank out year-in reports and complete year-in projects while our directors and upper echelon for whatever reason are the only ones allowed to take off vacation on these blackout dates.

And because of everything that many of us face, your metachurch team and I, we know that it's easy to also despise this time of year.

And we understand that it's easy to lose sight of the significance of the Christmas season.

And it can just become another commercialized holiday that we come to dread.

And for those reasons, over the next several weeks, as Pastor Clayton mentioned, your meta church team and I, we are going to unpack for you certain significant themes around the Christmas season that's illuminated in scriptures and then highlighted in very popular Christmas songs.

And our hope is to be able to redeem for you or to redeem for your loved ones this season.

And our hope is that going forward, whenever you hear those songs, that they will be reminders for you of the richness of Christmas and that you will be encouraged.

And our hope is going forward, every single one of us will have such a deep and profound understanding of the Christmas story that this season can still be for you the most wonderful time of year, even as you endure your very real, your very valid circumstances.

And so today in particular, all right, I have the assignment and the task of laying the foundation for this series and setting the tone for these next couple of weeks.

And we are going to explore the very first song in our series and the richness and the significance of that very popular Christmas song.

Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel.

Anyone familiar with that song?

Yes, anybody like that song?

It's a fantastic song.

Yeah, and hopefully today you'll like it even more after our conversation.

And I got to be up front with you guys though.

Okay, in order to do well, what we're going to do today, we have a huge undertaking ahead of us.

All right, we have to get a firm grasp on this Christmas story, but in order to do that, we have to journey through about 2100 years of our faith, traditions, history.

We are going to journey through the majority of the Jewish scriptures, our Old Testament.

We're gonna go from book to book to book, really quickly, era to era, in just about 35 minutes in the time span of a television show.

Y'all can hang with me, though, right?

I I think y'all can hang with me.

So, expectation's sake, all right?

As we set up this series, uh, today will mostly be a lot of backstory.

And I promise you though, at the end of our time today, I'm gonna tie a bow on everything that we discussed, and I'll explain a little bit about what it means for you, for me, for our loved ones, and again, for expectation's sake, you might leave feeling like a lot was left unaddressed or a lot was unresolved, and that's because it's going to be.

And that means you just have to come back every single week in this series to get the true depths of the richness of a meta church Christmas.

To that end, all right.

Before we jump into today's teaching, would you guys join me in asking God by his spirit to speak to us?

Father, we ask that you would help drown out any distractions that we may have come in here with, any concerns that we're ruminating upon, and help center us, still us to pay attention to whatever it is you want to say through your scriptures.

Speak to us, Lord, we're listening for you, and as for me, as always, Lord, I just prayed you would use me as a vessel.

May the words that come out of my mouth be an accurate depiction of who you are and your love for everyone watching or listening.

I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So as we jump into today's teaching, it is helpful that we all share a collective and common understanding of a certain concept that is prominent throughout the Old Testament scriptures.

And this concept is illustrated by an image that I have displayed on the screen.

And for those of you listening only to the audio displayed or images of a or an image of a cartoon, large constrictor snake, sort of like a boa or an anaconda, and this cartoon snake is wrapped around and squeezing another cartoon figure, Mowgli, from a jungle book, and his eyes are like bulging out of his head from the pressure of being constricted.

Now, this cartoon figure, he's captive against his will, right?

You guys can see that, and I'm sure you would agree with me that he likely feels powerless, and he probably feels suffocated, and he is desperate to be released.

And maybe you guys have never actually been crushed by a constricting snake, but perhaps you know the suffocating and helpless sentiment that is associated with this imagery.

Like perhaps you have felt captive to an ongoing chemical dependency from which you just cannot break free.

Or perhaps you felt the tightening grip of too much month at the end of your money.

Or maybe the squeezing pressure of having been laid off from a job and not able to find gainful, meaningful employment for a significant period of time, or even the constricting feeling of being stuck in a job and working for a boss that you just completely detest, or perhaps you were once crushed by the devastating news of a diagnosis, or that of an unexpected death, and death and grief had its grip on you.

And so you were desperate for a release from it, and you cried out.

Well, this idea of being held captive and feeling like you're being crushed, and feeling like you're suffocated, and feeling desperate for a release, it's captured in this Hebraic concept that you see throughout the scriptures in the English word for uh in the English word of distress.

All right, so somebody say that word distress with me on the count of three.

Here we go.

One, two, three, distress.

And I bring up this concept.

Because as we enter into the backstory of the Christmas story, that's captured in the song we're gonna sing a little bit later today.

Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, there was an immense and an intense sentiment of feeling captive and of feeling crushed with grief.

The scriptures record that the people, they desperately cried out, they said, We are in great distress.

And so, what was so constricting as we enter into this Christmas story?

What was so distressing?

And what does this have to do with the significance of the Christmas story and how it impacts your life and how it impacts my life today?

Well, the depth of people's suffocating distress, it dates back to about 2100 BC.

Okay, so travel back in time with me to 2100 BC.

Our creator, our heavenly father, he sought to make known to the world his love and his worth so that all people would come to know him and enjoy life as he intended.

And so to begin to roll out his plan to make himself known to the world, God chose to bless a certain man, Abraham.

And he promised to Abraham, he said, Abraham, look, I will give you descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.

And he promised Abraham, he said, Look, I will give you and your descendants also a land teeming with animal life and plant life.

And this land, it represented abundance and it represented well-being, it represented peace and rest that comes with God's provision.

That promised land, it's roughly about 300,000 square miles more than many countries in our world existing today.

It was described as a land flowing with milk and honey.

And when the people of the world, when they saw the provision and the prosperity that Abraham and his descendants were living in, well, then they would have been pointed to God and they would want to live in his presence.

It's quite the purpose, if you think about it.

The scriptures record it this way: God speaking to Abraham, he said, Abraham, live in my presence and be blameless.

Here is my perpetual promise, this promise that I will never break with you, my covenant with you.

You will become the father of many nations, and I will make you extremely fruitful, and will make nations and kings come from you.

It is this permanent promise to be your God and the God of your offspring after you.

And to you and your future offspring, I will give the land where you are residing, all the land of Canaan, as a permanent possession, and I will be their God, and all of the world would see you, and you would point to me.

Now y'all gotta admit, okay, the creator of the heavens and the earth, making an offer like that, granting you and your heirs some premier real estate, like that's a heck of a deal, right?

I mean, I've been in vocational ministry over a decade now, and I'm like, come on, God, can I get like a half acre of Texas Hill Country Land or something?

So, what was even sweeter for Abraham and his descendants about that deal was that our Heavenly Father, man, he was gonna do all the heavy lifting for them.

He was going to drive out any and all occupants in that land he was giving them.

And all Abraham and his descendants had to do, all they had to do was just a very small part of trusting God and following his instructions to enter and possess the way.

Now, any social media users up in the house today, don't be shy, go ahead and raise your hands.

All y'all are lying.

I know you guys use social media.

Okay, and if you're like me, chances are anytime someone on social you see somebody post like a really delicious meal at a brand new restaurant that just sprang up, or anytime you see somebody post like an activity at another place where it's within driving distance, and you think to yourself, man, you know, maybe that's a place that I would like to try.

It looks pretty intriguing.

What do you do?

My guess is you probably do what I do, right?

I click that little ribbon button to save to my places of list to try later.

Or I click that little paper airplane button and I share it with my spouse or some very close friends, and I send them a DM.

I'm like, yo, check this place out.

We've got to try this at some point, right?

That's kind of what we all do.

Why is that?

Why are we that way?

Well, first of all, we're all just very curious beings, and many of us naturally desire the thrill of new and novel.

Ain't nothing wrong with that.

You know, it's kind of cool that we are an explorer kind of species.

And additionally, whenever we see something that somebody has or has experienced that we have not, well, there's a small part of our humanity that kind of feels like we're missing out.

Right?

We get that sense of FOMO, and we may feel a little incomplete or perhaps even less than, and so we just have to join in on other people's squad.

And then on top of all of that by God's design, okay, you and I, we are all very social beings who are interconnected and we are interdependent.

And, you know, all sorts of modern scientific research today, it reveals that my beliefs and my behaviors, and your beliefs and your behaviors are largely influenced by any guesses?

The people you surround yourself with.

You've probably heard that saying, show me who your friends are, and I will show you who you are, right?

Not just the people we surround ourselves with.

Well, modern research reveals is that your beliefs and behaviors, my beliefs and behaviors are largely influenced by your friends, friends, friends.

People you don't even know, people you have never met and probably wouldn't even like if you met them.

And my point is that every single one of us, okay, we are all very curious, connected, communal creatures whose beliefs and behaviors are easily influenced by even strangers.

And our creator clearly knew this.

And he knows this about us, right?

He created us, and for this reason, in order for Abraham's descendants to enjoy the life that he promised to them, God instructed them, okay, look, do not by any means get intimately involved with any people who are living in ways that are incongruent with my ways.

And he went on to say, look, and just so you guys don't get tempted, whenever you enter into that land, here's what I need you to do.

I need you to destroy anything and everything that will influence any kind of unhealthy way of life.

Here's how it's recorded in the scriptures.

God said this promise.

He said, I'm going to drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jehuzites, and the Cellulites.

Okay, you're paying attention.

Okay, good, good, good.

Be careful not to make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land that you are going to enter.

Otherwise, they will become for you like a boa constrictor, like an anaconda that wraps itself around you and constricts you and restrains you and squeezes you and keeps you from living the life that I intend for you.

He said, They will become a snare among you.

And so instead, you must tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, and chop down anything that looks like a totem pole that would distract you from living for me.

Now that sounds pretty simple and pretty freaking fun, right?

Like I get to demolish things and I get some premier real estate.

Like, come on, somebody, sign me up for that.

But when Abraham's descendants, who at this point in time were referred to as the Israelites, when they entered the land and they saw how groups lawlessly lived and did whatever was pleasing in their own lives, which by the way, as you journey through the Old Testament scriptures, you will see that phrase repeated time and time again.

They did what was pleasing in their own eyes.

Do you know, seeing this, what the Israelites did?

Exactly what they were instructed not to do, and exactly whatever you and I do whenever we're on social media and we see people doing something that we have not yet done.

Right?

They clicked that little ribbon and they saved whatever thoughts they had about I gotta do this later, or they hit the share button with their friends and they were like, yo, we've got to try this.

Many of them thought to themselves, this is the life.

Look at this, they get to do whatever they want.

I want that life, and God, with all his rules, for loving one another, man.

He is holding us down, he is holding us back.

We've got to try what the people in this land are experiencing.

So the Israelites, rather than fulfilling their part of the bargain, they began to bargain with the people in the land that was promised to them.

They compromised their purpose.

They wanted to be accepted and approved by the other people groups among them.

So rather than being the influencers, they allowed themselves to be influenced.

They gave themselves over to various abhorrent practices like child sacrifice and other lewd sexual acts, instead of becoming a people with a very distinct identity that revealed the love and the worth of God to the world instead of living out a life of significance and impact.

They settled for insignificance.

And because they compromised with the cultures around them, they became sort of captives in their own land.

And the promise of life in 300,000 square miles of paradise with an abundance of animals and plenty of plants, a life of rest and peace, it devolved into a life of self-interest, of strife, struggle.

Here's what's communicated in the scriptures.

Instead, Abraham's descendants, the Israelite, strong language here.

They prostituted themselves.

It makes me wonder.

They prostituted themselves with other gods bowing down to them.

Here's a cautionary tale for us.

You see, being immersed in any culture for a period of time, it can be really great.

Right?

As we get exposed to various people groups, it's great for our empathy.

It's great for us to have an understanding of other people's dynamics, right?

It helps us grow and maybe be a lot more humble.

Or it can be a slippery slope.

You see, being immersed in any culture, there is a danger and there is a tendency for unfamiliar behaviors to eventually become for us that which is the norm and acceptable.

For example, okay.

Just a few years ago, it was not at all typical for us in the United States to have such rhetorically offensive and politically divisive election campaigns.

Well, at least not to the degree that we've been seeing it play out.

I'm sure you guys would agree with that, those of you who've been voting for a really long time.

But within a few election cycles, like in my lifetime, okay, over the handful of times that I've been allowed to vote, we are seeing more and more extreme conduct become commonplace.

Like we're seeing more and more outlandish politics that if it continues at some point in the future, our kiddos are going to be, are going to say, well, I mean, that's just how it is.

That's how it's always been.

We're gonna come to accept it.

We're going to come to expect it.

Maybe we already have.

The point is, the more familiar a behavior becomes, the more likely we are to accept it as normal.

The longer you and I are immersed in any certain culture, the more likely we are to adapt to it and to adopt it.

Deformed by it.

This is what sociologists call the social normalization of deviance.

The social normalization of deviance, it's not something that I just made up.

And our father knew this, and he knows this about us, he created us, right?

Social normalization of deviance, a process that unsafe practices become considered okay, prostituting ourselves.

It is precisely why God instructed the Israelites to obliterate anything and everything that would distract them from him.

It was a display of his love, it was a display of his protection for them because he knew that compromising with these pagan cultures it would distract and it would detract them from living the life that he intended for them, from live for living the ways that he wanted them to, and that over time, these perverse pagan practices, well then they would be normalized in the Israelites' lives.

And his ways, they would become abnormal, and he would become abhorrent.

And God knew that over time the Israelites would become averse to him.

And such is exactly what happened with the Israelites over the course of several centuries, not destroying the distractions.

It led to being influenced to not love others in the way that God had instructed.

And then generation after generation, people began to mistreat each other.

Even worse.

But that became normalized.

And so they got they began to mistreat each other even worse.

And then that became normalized.

And it was a slippery slope for them, generation after generation.

The Israelites' conduct toward one another became more perverse and more evil.

Here's how the centuries of deviation is detailed in the book of Judges, the Israelites.

They would act even more corruptly than their ancestors.

Following other gods to serve them and to bow in worship to them.

And they did not turn from their evil practices or their obstinate ways.

And as you and I read through the Old Testament scriptures detailing, that detail the periods of time known as the time of the judges, and that detail the time of the kings and the prophets, well, what we come to see is that there is a certain certain cycle that gets repeated in the lives of the Israelites.

Their disobedience led to deviance, which led to disaster and distress.

But God in his loving compassion, he delivered them.

But there was disobedience, which led to deviance, which led to disaster and distress.

But then God in his loving compassion, what did he do?

He delivered them.

And the cycle repeated.

In fact, in the sections of the scriptures that we refer to as first and second kings, and first and second chronicles, of the 40 plus kings from Abraham's lineage, whose stories were recorded, only seven kings ended their lives, leading the Israelites according to their purpose, leading the Israelites, pointing people to God, and living in a way that was pleasing to God.

Which means at least 35 kings did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and misled the Israelites, did not live out their purpose, meaning the world under the generations of 35 kings did not see God's worth and his love on display and the cycle of disobedience and deviance which led to disaster.

It repeated for roughly 1,000 years.

Without the world seeing the love and the worth of God.

God's messengers, his priests, who he had appointed to ensure that the Israelites had actually stayed on track to live out their purpose.

They grieved at what had become of their people, the Israelites.

The priest cried out.

They said, Here we are today, slaves in the land that you gave our ancestors so that they could enjoy its fruit and its goodness.

So all the world would see your worth and your love through us, that we would point people to you.

Yet here we are, slaves in that promised land.

And it's abundant harvest.

It goes to kings that you have set over us because of our disobedience and our deviance because of our sins.

And they rule over our bodies and our livestock as they please.

Man, we feel this like boa constrictor, this anaconda that has wrapped itself around us.

We are suffocating God.

We are in great distress.

Now, have you ever had a dear friend?

Sibling, child or grandchild who you love so deeply, and for whom you want them to live and experience their best possible life, but they're a little dedicated, right?

A little hard-headed.

And they dismiss and they disregard all of your great advice that would really help them.

Anyone have a friend or a loved one who's like that?

Don't raise their hand, your hand if they're here today.

You know that wouldn't advise that.

Like maybe you've had a loved one who is involved with an incredibly toxic person, and everyone, yourself included.

They urge your loved one, man, you've got to leave.

This is not safe, this is not healthy for you.

But for whatever reason, they continuously return to that toxic person.

And as much as it pains you, and as much as you want to be present and available, as much as you want to help and to serve, you eventually arrive at a very frightening decision, but it's for the best.

At this point, you say, look, okay, the best way I'm gonna be able to love you, I'm gonna be able to serve you, is I gotta be hands-off.

And I need to set some very healthy boundaries from this point forward.

And unfortunately, I'm gonna hand you over to your desires and the consequences of it.

Because we all know, those of us who have lived for a certain amount of time, we know that the best wake-up call that we've all experienced, unfortunately, the best attention getter for us at times has been what?

Consequence, right?

And I bring that up because what happened next in the story of the Israelites, and the backstory of our Christmas story, is God loving them in such a way.

He handed them over to their own desires and to the consequences of them.

You see, perhaps, and this was perhaps the straw that broke the camel's back for God in order to move into the next phase of his plan.

The very people who God had designated to be his mouthpiece, to be his messengers, the very people who had been entrusted to care for the well-being of the Israelites, to ensure that they stayed on track to live out their purpose and point people to God, his priests.

They began to use their platforms and their positions as a means of self-promotion and of profit.

And they too succumbed to the social normalization of deviance.

I mean, think about how discredited I would be.

If I stood up here and you guys knew that I'm just all about myself building a platform and just wanting to take your money to pad my pocket.

Anything that comes out of my mouth will be corrupt, right?

It will mislead you, it will not be what God desires.

And so God knew this.

And thus there was no longer any hope for humanity because even the messengers had been corrupted, and God was grieved at this.

And so he said of his priest's conduct, he said, You have turned from the way.

You have caused many to stumble by your instruction.

You have violated the covenant of walking with me.

You are not keeping my ways, but you are showing partiality in your instruction.

So, like I've made the difficult decision of doing at times, like many of you have made the difficult decision of doing at times with somebody who just won't listen God lovingly.

And he sorrowfully handed over his chosen instrument, Abraham's descendants, to their desires and to the consequences of them.

And this brings us to an interesting point in human history.

I encourage you all to Google this and look this up.

It's a period of time when God seemingly did not speak prophetically through any messengers.

The time between the last recordings of the Jewish scriptures, our Old Testament, and the events that have been canonized in the accounts that we call the Gospels.

It's a period of time referred to as the 400 years of silence, or the intertestamental period.

Okay, so we're on the home stretch of our history lesson here, and we're gonna move into what all of this means for us in just a moment, but this part it has to be told.

All right, it's especially critical for us to understand the backstory of a Christmas story and to get the real richness and the depths of it.

So in this intertestamental period, all right, it was indescribably demoralizing for the people who, throughout our conversation today, we had previously referred to as the Israelites, but at this point, by then in human history, they were referred to as the Jews.

And so around 336 BC, somebody you guys have probably heard about in your history classes in grade school, Alexander the Great, he entered into and he conquered the promised land.

And part of Alexander the Great's strategy to change the world was to eradicate all other cultures and to colonize them, to make them all sort of one people under one world religion, one world order.

And so he enforced that everyone communicated with a singular language, like an ancient form of Greek.

And everyone was to have a similar practice of worship.

And so, under Greek rule, Abraham's descendants were further humiliated when their own temple and their own altar was desecrated, and they were forced to offer sacrifices to Greek gods like Zeus and Helen.

And anyone who opposed the Greek way of life, they were sold into slavery or they were slaughtered.

And so for 300 years, it's like that boa constrictor of compromise that had ensnared their ancestors and kept them in its tight tight grip.

It's like it began to squeeze even tighter.

And the Greek Empire, it systematically stripped the Israelites, now the Jews, of their freedom, their identity, their dignity, and whatever was left of whatever worth they might have had financially.

All the while.

Can you imagine how restricted and constricted and restrained?

These guys felt they had sacrificed a life of significance and impact.

Insignificant.

Well then finally, around 63 BC, an even better organized and mightier military power, the Roman Empire, they conquered the promised land.

And the Romans, they had these ambitions of ushering in world peace and prosperity for all.

And they envisioned a world that was connected with intricate roadway systems and irrigation systems, and that erected all these magnificent monuments.

And in order to realize that vision and to make sure that everybody was gonna stay in line for that vision, they installed into the promised land all of these governing officials to exact an iron-fisted rule over the Jewish people and to even further crush their already demoralized spirits with humiliating tactics like crucifixion and flogging and even heavy taxation, taking more from them.

Now, this brings us to the end of the first century BC.

And hopefully by now you guys have just a little glimpse into the depths of despair and despondency of Abraham's descendants, right?

What they would have felt, not enjoying the land or the life that had been promised to them, right?

They felt suffocated.

And this is the sentiment that is captured in the song that we are going to sing here in just a few minutes.

Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel God with us, right?

There were no halls that were being decked, there were no bells that were jingling in that song.

It's a cry out to God from the depths of their stomach for some aid.

They're saying, ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here.

From the depths of hell, thy people save and give them victory over the grave.

They felt that they were in hell.

And because they compromised their purpose to reveal the worth and the love of God to the world.

Well, that meant the world too was in utter distress.

The world too was in hell and had no hope of ever knowing the one true God, meaning the world was in jeopardy of forever remaining in darkness.

And perhaps some of you feel that way right now, or you know somebody who feels that you're living in hell on earth.

And if that's how you feel right now, or you know somebody who feels that way, pay attention, okay?

Because here's where it all comes together.

Here's where we're gonna tie a bow on everything that we just discussed and surveyed the 2100-year discourse that we just had right now.

Let's go back to where we started, all right?

What did all of this have to do with the significance of the Christmas story and with our lives today?

This is where you wake up the person next to you, okay?

We're gonna summarize this right here.

The significance of the Christmas story.

It's a story not so much about the Israelites, but it's a story revealing who God is and his heart for a world that is devoid of hope to enjoy the life that he intended for us.

I mean, think about who God revealed himself to be in what we just surveyed over the last 30 minutes.

Think about who God revealed himself to be in his dealings with Abraham's descendants.

You and I, we have a father who loves us so greatly that he desires for all people, you and me, to know his worth and to know his love so that we would be compelled to live in his presence and enjoy the life of plenty and abundance and peace in paradise.

You and I, we have a father, a creator who intimately knows the intricate design of his creation.

He created us, right?

And so he gives you and he gives me instructions as to how we can live for our protection and for our well-being, not to withhold from us, so we keep from living compromised lives, constricted from living out our purpose, relegating to insignificance.

You and I, we have a father who loves us so greatly that he gives us a freedom of choice, free will, right to live however we desire.

And he doesn't control us or he doesn't coerce us, that wouldn't be love, even though it pains him when we don't choose his instruction.

And you and I, what is revealed in God's dealings with Abraham's descendants, we have a father who loves us so greatly that even when we repeatedly disobey and deviate from his instruction, even after 2100 years, or the 2,000 years thereafter.

So patiently prepared to reconcile with us.

Here's what I mean.

God is so compassionate.

He knew that the only way for people to ever live in his presence and enjoy his peace was to make a way for his presence and his peace to live in us.

Let me say that a little differently.

You and I have a God who's so immensely concerned for us.

He understood that the only hope that we would ever have to dwell in his presence and dwell in his peace was to make a way for his presence and peace to first indwell us.

You following me?

Am I making sense right here?

See, y'all, the provision and the prosperity of the promised land, it was never about a people inhabiting a physical place, it had little to do with that, and it always had everything to do with whether or not people permitted a certain person to preside over them.

And while we were still sinners, while we deviate, while we disobey, disobey, while we were still sinners, God provided a way for the peace of the promised land to land in us.

Jesus emptied himself of his divine attributes, and he entered the world in a form of a baby.

The virgin will conceive and have a son, and we'll name him Emmanuel, meaning God with us.

The prophet Isaiah continued, he said, For a child will be born for us, and a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders, he will be named wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father, prince of peace, and the dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end.

Jesus became God with us.

Emmanuel to demonstrate how to perfectly live out God's instruction, because we couldn't do it, and to fulfill for the law the payment that was required for your and my deviance and disobedience, past, present, future, to be the punishment for our consequences, to take on God's wrath, to die, a sinless death on a cross, taking on our sin, right?

In order that he would eventually pour out his spirit and become God within us when we receive it.

And so this Christmas and every Christmas henceforth, whenever you hear and sing the song, Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, let it be a reminder that even in our disobedience and even in our deviance, in our disaster and in our distress, our Father He loves you, He made a way for His present to presence to reside in you, to preside from within you.

In order to commune with you always, to remind you that He is mighty God, that He is eternal Father, to remind you of who you are, whose you are, to comfort you when you feel constricted, to guide you when you have compromised, to make you new, to give you hope for your future, because His dominion is ever everlasting.

This life is just the beginning in order to give you peace and rest of the promised land on this earth in this life until we get to enjoy his peace in his presence for eternity.

And this is why, no matter your very real, your very valid circumstances, this is why I believe that Christmas can still be the most wonderful time of year for us all.

And so on that note, here's what we're gonna do.

The band is gonna play for us the song O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

And we're gonna create some time for us to be contemplative, right?

To really create some mental and emotional space to consider our Heavenly Father's immense compassion, immense love for us, that He would send Jesus to be God with us.

And one thing I would encourage you to do if you so desire, man, let the lyrics of this song be your heart's cry.

And you cry out, Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, God, be with me.

I need you to comfort me, to guide me, to release me.

And so however you feel comfortable, those of you watching or listening at home, whether you want to stay on the sofa, get on your knees.

Those of you who are here in person, you want to stay in your seats, stand up, raise your hands, hold your hands out to receive.

I invite you to participate in this contemplative time.

Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel.

And ransom captives that month only exile until the son of com thou taste spring and chill out in the gloomy class of night.

And stuck shadows.

Shall come to the nation spite all people in my bid.

Shall come to the Israel.

Shall come to the o israel, shall come to the Israel.

Let's pray.

Jesus, we thank you that you're with us.

God, for anyone who feels like they are in the silence right now, not hearing from you, anyone who feels that they are in distress right now, being squeezed by all of the different factors of their life, they would find solace in the first Christmas.

When you broke into the silence, when you left a perfect heaven to come down to our world.

Holy Spirit, we trust that you're here, that you are seeking us.

Some in this room and online who've been walking with you for many, many years, you're reminding of just how close you are.

And some who do not yet know you, you stand at the door and you're knocking even today.

Jesus, we thank you for coming.

And yet you have promised that one day you will come back for us.

So as your people, we say again, O come, oh come.

Emmanuel.

We ask it in your name.

Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

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Man, I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.