You are the reason for the season (from Sunday December 13 2015)

Sunday December 20 I like a little bit of controversy. I told you last year from all of my studies I do not in any way adopt the notion that Joseph and Mary travelled to an inn an actual hotel to find a room. I do not subscribe whole heartedly to the thought that He was born in an actual stable because in those days they had homes with levels. The animals were kept in the lower parts of the house and most likely the house they attempted to stay in was full. Homes in those days had guest rooms, they all had guest rooms for travelers and well everyone’s guest rooms were full. But the coldhearted mean old guy in our children’s Christmas plays that says there is no room in the inn is actually someone who had compassion. He couldn’t send them back out into the cold, here was a young man who had travelled 80 miles in two days by foot and by donkey. Here was a young lady who was very pregnant and as we would say about to pop. So, it was compassion that led him to tell them there was no room in the house, or in the guest room but there was the room where the animals stayed out of the elements if they couldn’t find anything else. Here is some big time controversy that will challenge almost everything you believe and have been told and sold through out the years. It is something that I discovered about 15 years ago and preach on about every other Christmas season. Here it is, You are the reason for the season. Jesus Christ existed before he was conceived in Mary’s womb. You and I did not exist before conception. So when we speak of our coming into the world, or speak of John the Baptist’s being “sent from God” (John 1:6), we don’t mean that he, or we, existed before we were sent. We mean our being sent was our coming into being. Not so with Jesus. Why God Wrote the Christmas Story Why? God could have created and run the universe differently. Why did it happen like this? For God so loved the world…… the end, go home have a great Christmas. One of the deepest biblical answers is that it was “fitting.” Hebrews 2:10-17 How is Christmas Fitting? Sandwiched between Hebrews 2:10 and 2:17 — between the declaration that Christ suffered because it was fitting, and Christ became like us because he was obliged to — is the great description of why Christ became human. Threfore this is part of the picture of how the incarnation was fitting. First, he became human because we are human. God’s great aim is to have a family of human children in which his eternal Son is one of them, yet supreme over them: Romans 8:29 Hebrews 2:17 Now I will tell you I try my best to remain transparent with you guys. I live out loud and under a microscope not because I think I am all that great of a person, but because as your pastor I want you to see that I am just a fallible as anyone in this room. I sin just as much and as often as anyone else. I may sin differently but all the same I sin. James tells us He who knows the good that He ought to do and doesn’t do it, for him that is sin. So there are sins we don’t think of in that manner as well. Well, it was very fitting that God’s own Son become flesh and blood. “That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers.” (Hebrews 2:11) Have you ever stated that someone was embarrassing. I really like to try to embarrass people. I tried to embarrass my little cousin Kaley because her engagement party was a hoe down. So I put on some over- alls, cut off the end of my boots, wore socks with holes in them and well it was well received. I mean one of the best parts was when she introduced me to her husband to be’s grandma as her cousin, the guy who will be doing the wedding ceremony. We also picked up one of my old youth interns from the airport dressed like that. Only, about 5 of us dressed up like that and held signs that had her named on it all misspelled. It was awesome because all her family from Ohio asked was if we were all rednecks and hicks down here so we greeted her that way. God sent His Son, and because His Son lived and walked and breathed on this earth He is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters. I mean come on, your kids do something and you just hope and pray that no one knows they belong to you, you shrink in the crowd and try to remain as quiet as possible while it goes on. Yet, Jesus is unashamed of us. This is story is fitting and beautiful — in God’s eyes. Second, he became human so that he might die. “He partook of flesh and blood that through death . . .” God, by his very nature, cannot die. But the God-Man, Jesus Christ, could die. Dying was fitting. Therefore, he became human — mortal. He became flesh and blood so that he could die. Have you ever seen undercover boss? I think it is funny to see these big suit wearing CEO’s flipping burgers or cleaning rest rooms on the other end of the chain. They see a lot of things, first they see how valuable the people at that level are and they see that they deserve better. They also, begin to relate to them much better. Jesus does not look down on us and think what a bunch of dummies, he looks down and says I feel your pain, I was tempted too, I was once human as well. Third, he became human “that (by dying) he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.” Not to put the devil out of existence, but to weaken his ability to make death an ending. The devil destroys with one weapon: unforgiven sin. He also came to earth as I stated earlier to die, but also so that he could sympathize with our fear of death. I told you last week fear is a sign of an imperfect bond with Jesus and well that bond can be made secure because as a human being, flesh and blood he struggled with the same things we fear including death. But in the death of Christ, God “cancelled the record of debt that stood against us . . . nailing it to the cross. the fourth reason the Son of God became human was to “deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” Now, when believers look into the dark face of death, they say, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). No more fear. No more bondage. Now. Or ever. Such a life is fearless life fitting for the saints. When God pondered how to write the story of the universe, there was nothing outside of himself to guide him. He made his choices according to how all things “fit” into a design that would best reveal his fullness. Christmas happened because it was fitting. Christmas happened because God saw a need, a need that every human being would ever have and He met it. How about this, Brae and I are huge Charlie Brown fans and well, there is a part of the movie I don’t think most of us have every noticed. To get the full effect you will need to watch the clip of Linus sharing the Christmas story during their play in Charlie Brown Christmas. During it he quotes the angels saying do not fear and as he says that he drops his blanket. That blanket has been a fixture for that little boy in every episode ever filmed of Charlie Brown, and he drops it. Jesus came to earth so that whatever our security is found in on this earth can be dropped and left behind because our only real, true security can be found in Him.