Sermon 1-6-08

Old Testament - Isaiah 60:1-6 Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Life up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the arm. Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come. Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the LORD. .

Epistle - Ephesians 3:2-12 Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

Gospel – (The Holy Gospel is the fulfillment of the Old Testament Lesson. Seven hundred years before the Wise Men actually came and visited and worshiped Jesus, God foretold what was going to happen. God’s perfect plan, God’s perfect timing, God’s perfect control over every situation.) Matthew 2:1-12 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea”, they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’ Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.” After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

Sermon:

Pretty soon, if you’re in school, you will be getting your report card. I have here a report card from Trinity Christian School and it shows that the students will be graded in reading, writing, spelling, social studies, science, and math. There are also things like social development, accepting responsibility, self control, work habits, using time wisely and on and on it goes. We don’t like report cards! But students, I have bad news for you - when you get out of school you’ll still get report cards; you’ll get graded by your supervisor from time to time. A lot of people have year-end reviews and are graded on how well they’re doing, how well they’re completing their work. It never ends; you’re always getting graded. And if you decide to become a Pastor it not only happens every year, it happens every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday! We get graded on the sermon, the music, the worship service, Bible class – graded on everything! That’s the way life is.

Do you think we should grade God? Let’s give God a Year-End Review, an evaluation. This may seem rather unholy to review and grade God, but don’t we do it all the time with our prayer life? We all know we could be praying a whole lot more than we do but we don’t because we’ve graded God. We think that sometimes God is doing only an average job of listening, sometimes He’s doing a poor job of listening, and sometimes we think He fails to listen at all, so we don’t pray. Whenever we say, “God, why did you let this happen? I don’t understand”, we are grading God; we’re saying “God, you’re not ruling this world in a correct manner. You’re not paying attention; you’re not doing the things You should be doing. Why did you let this happen?” We grade God all the time, so let’s not pretend to be holier than we are, let’s lay our cards on the table, come clean with God and let’s give Him a Year-End Evaluation.

Let’s look back at the first Christmas we’ve been talking about for the last six weeks and let’s grade God. You have to remember as in all evaluations, maybe this is not so much for God, but it’s for us. I remember learning a very interesting thing from a professor in the counseling classes at Seminary. He said what Person A says about Person B tells more about Person A than it does about Person B. So maybe this evaluation is really for us because what we say about God tells us more about ourselves than it tells about God. So with that in mind let’s find out a little bit more about ourselves by grading and evaluating God. We’re going to grade Him in nine different areas.

1) Planning - What grade would you give God in regard to planning that first Christmas? The Old Testament said that Christ would be born in Bethlehem. So to fulfill the prophecy, Joseph and Mary had to make the journey to Bethlehem and Mary was nine-months pregnant. It would have been easier if the Old Testament prophecy had said that Jesus would be born in Nazareth. To me that’s bad planning. And they finally get to Bethlehem and there’s no room in the inn. Wouldn’t it have been better if Jesus had been born in Israel in 2008 when there’s a Hilton and a Sheraton with a reservation system. Sounds like bad planning to me. And He came at a time when Herod wanted to kill him. How about waiting till Herod wasn’t king anymore, then send Jesus. Bad planning. I’d give God an “F” in planning.

2) Timing - What grade would you give God in regard to timing? Matthew 1:18 says, “His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they come together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.” Joseph was in the dark, he had no idea that the child conceived in her was from the Holy Spirit. He has no idea because no one has told him. God hadn’t told him about that. So Joseph thinks that Mary is messing around on the side and he doesn’t know what to do about it. It’s causing him distress, concern and worry. Verse 20 says, “But after he had considered divorcing her, 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 will give birth to a son and you will give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.”’ I think that’s pretty bad timing. Why didn’t the angel come before Joseph found out Mary was pregnant. If you were getting reviewed by your boss in this situation he would say “That’s bad timing; that was a mistake on your part.” I think we have to give God an “F” in timing.

3) Creating comfort, security and happiness - We want comfort, we want security and we want happiness and isn’t it God’s job to give us that? Let’s look at the Christmas Story again. If you were Mary or Joseph with all this bad planning and bad timing, would give have comfort? You have to journey to Bethlehem, there’s all this taxation, the crowds, no place to stay – there’s no comfort there! I think we have to give God an “F” in comfort. Or how about security? Herod’s trying to kill your baby; that certainly doesn’t make you feel secure. Give God an “F”! What about happiness? When there’s bad planning, bad timing, no comfort and no security, are you happy? God’s not creating happiness here. Another “F”!

4) Eliminating difficulty and stress - The whole Christmas Story is full of difficulty. The taxation, the journey to Bethlehem, no room in the inn, Herod wants to kill your child – what else could go wrong? God sure is not eliminating the difficulty here. Give him an “F”! And all the stuff we’ve talked about, you better believe that creates stress! Another “F”! So far God has all “F’s” on His report card. He’s failing!

But when you do a Year-End Review for someone you have to give the person a chance to respond. So halfway through this review we’re going to give God a chance to respond. In your prayer time and in your thoughts as you’re telling God what you really think about Him, you have to give God time to respond. He gives some pretty interesting answers in response to all those “F’s”. One of God’s responses to His Year-End Review is Proverbs 3:5. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” As I’m giving God all those“F’s”, I’m leaning on my own understanding. I’m saying, “God, things should be working better in this world. We should have comfort, security and happiness, better planning, better timing – that’s what’s needed, God.” And verse 6, “In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.” God will work things out according to His plan. In the events surrounding the First Christmas we see God working His plan. Maybe God is not so interested in comfort, security and happiness, maybe He’s interested in something else. We’ll find out about that as we continue our grading process.

Another of God’s responses that is important for us is John 16:33. Jesus says “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world.” If we trust in God with all our heart, maybe there’s a reason that He had all this discomfort, this insecurity, this difficulty, this stress. Because Christmas is not just Mary and Joseph, it’s about Jesus. Jesus came into a situation with bad planning, bad timing, a situation that was very uncomfortable, very insecure and He says, “In this world you will have stress, difficulty, problems.” And stress, difficulty and problems even happened to Him! Jesus didn’t come to avoid that stuff, He plunged Himself right into the middle of it so that He could show us that He could overcome it. That’s all we need to see. The problems, difficulties and stress in this world are caused by sin. We live in a world where everything goes wrong and always goes wrong at the worst possible time. We need to see that God is right there in the midst of the difficulty and says “Fear not, I have overcome all this stuff.” That’s why He came into difficulty, stress and problems. God has his reasons. Trust in Him and not our own human understanding. Let’s continue our evaluation and give God a chance to respond.

5) Achieving Set Goals - Matthew 1:21 “The angel said to Joseph, ‘You are to name him Jesus because he will save people from their sins.’” The goal God set is that Jesus would be the blood sacrifice that paid for our sins. And He accomplished it. We can give God an “A” on this one.

6) Keeping Promises – Matthew 1:22-23 “The birth of Jesus took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet (700 years earlier): ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel – which means, “God with us.” Sin paid for, God not working against us, God for us. That was His promise and He achieved His promise. We’ll give God an “A” in Keeping Promises.

7) Keeping People Dependent on Him – Psalm 119:65-72 The Psalmist says in verse 72 “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn from your ways” He said, “Then I remained dependent on God, then I read my Bible, then I sought Him out in His Word, then I heard what He had to say. It was good that I was afflicted!” Mary and Joseph were dependent on God for their survival. With all that went wrong, they had to remain dependent on God. God is good at keeping people dependent on Him. Give God an “A+”.

8) Revealing Jesus as Savior – Luke 24:45-47 ssays, “Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” God says, “Here’s the plan for the world: repentance and forgiveness will be preached in Jesus’ name.” Through the events of Christmas, God revealed Jesus as the Savior of the world and showed that people need to repent and trust in Him. Even the name Jesus means Savior. So we will give God an “A+” again.

9) Bringing Good From The Bad – Isaiah 53:5, some bad stuff here. “He was pierced for our transgression, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed.” Pierced, wounded, punished; all bad stuff, especially if you’re sinless! “And by his wounds we are healed”. Good results from bad stuff. And all those events of Christmas, with everything going wrong, good came from it. God showed His power, God showed that He cared for Joseph, God showed that He cared for Mary and God showed that He cared for you. Lots of bad stuff, but God brought good from it, so He gets another “A+”!

We, from our human perspective, are interested in comfort, security, happiness, letting the good times roll, no problems, no worry. Is that a top priority with God? Not really. His priority is to achieve His goals, His priority is keeping His promises, His priority is keeping people dependent on Him because without Him we’re sunk, His priority is revealing Jesus as Savior because without Jesus every other pathway to God leads to Hell. And He shows His power by bringing good from the bad that He may be lifted up and glorified.

Now in light of God achieving His goals, keeping His promises, keeping people dependent on Him, revealing Jesus as Savior and bringing good from the bad, you know what happens? When God does all those good things, then often we’re not concerned about His planning, we’re not concerned about His timing and we find we do have comfort. We say, “God is in control, He’s doing His plan.” We have security, we have happiness because we know that God will bring good from the difficulty. And the stress is our problem. When we trust in God, the stress will be eliminated. God has a plan, and as He does #’s 5 through 9, we find that #’s 1 through 4 are not so important.

So we need to make a New Year’s Resolution. In light of grading God, in light of learning something about ourselves, our New Year’s Resolution is summed up in Proverbs 3:5

“Trust in the LORD with all our hearts and lean not on our own understanding.” Doesn’t that sound good? Do you resolve to do that? That’s our New Year’s Resolution. Next week we’re going to look at God’s New Year’s Resolution for you and me, what God has resolved to do for us in the coming year.

Heavenly Father, after looking at the Christmas Story, after evaluating Your behavior, after learning something about ourselves, we’ve learned that we need to trust in You with our whole hearts. Lord, in the coming year help us to trust in You with all our hearts and lean not on our own understanding. And we pray this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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